Philosophical Pessimism vs. Stoicism
For many of the people on this forum, Stoicism is a stock answer to how people handle life faced with conditions that a Philosophical Pessimist might enumerate upon. Since Stoicism keeps coming up, I'd like to know what some users on here think of Stoicism in regards to it being an answer to the problems posed by the Philosophical Pessimist.
1) Does the Stoic ethic provide an answer to the existential boredom/instrumentality/annoyances/negative experiences/desire/flux/becoming-and-never-being, etc. that the Philosophical Pessimist poses?
2) Is Stoicism a kind of Philosophical Pessimism or at least close cousins? If it is not a kind of Philosophical Pessimism, how might they differ?
3) How might a Philosophical Pessimist's answer to solving life's sufferings be different than a Stoic's?
For the purposes of this thread, the definitions of Philosophical Pessimism is this:
Either existence:
-contains much suffering (empirical), and thus not good. (negative contingent pain, negative experiences in general, etc. (pace Benatar and partly Schopenhauer)
-The world is suffering (metaphysical) and thus not good (the ceaseless striving and emptiness of the self-reflecting human animal). (pace Schopenhauer and some Eastern philosophies).
The definition of Stoicism is: an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge, and that the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.
Also included in the definition is anything related to these definitions that are not included but are implied. Clearly, one can write a thesis just on the definitions and specifications of thought on each school of philosophy, but obviously I just needed it as short as possible.
@Sapentia @Benkei @180 Proof @darthbarracuda @Thorongil @Agustino
1) Does the Stoic ethic provide an answer to the existential boredom/instrumentality/annoyances/negative experiences/desire/flux/becoming-and-never-being, etc. that the Philosophical Pessimist poses?
2) Is Stoicism a kind of Philosophical Pessimism or at least close cousins? If it is not a kind of Philosophical Pessimism, how might they differ?
3) How might a Philosophical Pessimist's answer to solving life's sufferings be different than a Stoic's?
For the purposes of this thread, the definitions of Philosophical Pessimism is this:
Either existence:
-contains much suffering (empirical), and thus not good. (negative contingent pain, negative experiences in general, etc. (pace Benatar and partly Schopenhauer)
-The world is suffering (metaphysical) and thus not good (the ceaseless striving and emptiness of the self-reflecting human animal). (pace Schopenhauer and some Eastern philosophies).
The definition of Stoicism is: an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge, and that the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.
Also included in the definition is anything related to these definitions that are not included but are implied. Clearly, one can write a thesis just on the definitions and specifications of thought on each school of philosophy, but obviously I just needed it as short as possible.
@Sapentia @Benkei @180 Proof @darthbarracuda @Thorongil @Agustino
Comments (487)
Is it? I'm not aware that any non-pessimists on here are self-described stoics. I don't remember seeing any major discussions over stoicism here in the past, either (although I could be wrong and if you have links then I will look at them). Unless they are specifically saying they are stoics, then all they are showing is a tendencies towards stoic-like beliefs. Generalizations may be harmful in discussions.
Quoting schopenhauer1
If it didn't have an answer then it would be a flawed philosophy. Presumably followers of Stoicism would not think these problems pose much of an issue. But I'm not exactly a stoic myself.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It is a common thing to hear Buddhism and Stoicism as the perfect couple. They are very similar. Buddhist philosophy is pessimistic in that it realizes that life is suffering. But it is not defeatist. It offers a solution to this unsavory condition. Stoicism does the same thing, and is oftentimes extremely compatible with Buddhist philosophy.
Also, as I'm sure you already know, philosophical pessimism is a family resemblance term. So someone's pessimism may not be the same pessimism as another person's. This makes it difficult to separate people's beliefs into strict categories.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I would need to know what the solution of your flavor of pessimism is before answering this question.
@Sapientia said: I don't deny these things; and I'll readily admit that I've personally experienced them at times. I view these things as things to be accepted and overcome or set aside. I think that my outlook is stoical.
@Agustino said: I have found pyrrhonism, epicureanism and stoicism in particular to be quite strong from a rational point of view. Epicureanism and stoicism, are for example, in practice, not even that far from each other; just different theoretical frameworks.
@Benkei said: Which in a sense is what, for instance, Stoicism is about in my view, I can't control my existence to such an extent that any ideal is ever attainable because existence is flux so I let go of (absolute) ideals.
These are just examples I have seen in the forums or in discussions I have seen. In this regard, I kind of conflate Spinoza's idea of Intellectual Love of God and overcoming the lower passions as a kind of Stoicism as well. The other philosopher thrown around a lot is Nietzsche because he apparently embraced the suffering.
They do think that life has suffering at the least, and their answer, if I was to boil it down to a slogan is "be indifferent to situations one cannot control".
I am using it in the philosophical pessimistic sense, not the common sense.
Generally speaking, this would be something of the following:
1) Not procreating or creating a new generation that will suffer.
2) Asceticism to deny the world/will/will-to-live so as to achieve a metaphysical state of calm.
3) Seeing everyone as fellow-sufferers who deserve compassion.
I see. Thank you for the examples, I was not aware of the influence Stoicism has on this forum.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, amor fati.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Hence the adjective "stoic", meaning enduring hardship.
I think you are right about the general slogan of Stoicism. Buddhism would posit that it is important to let go of your desires as well. In this way, the two philosophies can be paired together as the ultimate secular philosophy of life. You have Stoicism's teachings of how to deal with the suffering you cannot avoid, and you have Buddhism's teachings of how to avoid the other type of suffering, the self-caused suffering. Stoicism would say that a natural disaster is not itself a "bad thing", but rather your reaction to the natural disaster is a bad thing. Buddhism would say that your desires (tanha), or Schopenhauer's Will, is the cause of every other type of suffering. That's my take on it anyway. Someone whoop me into shape if I butchered it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't honestly have any problems with this position, as it's basically what I uphold today. This doesn't mean you can't additionally be a stoic or a buddhist. But that wasn't your original question, was it?
To which I suggest a topic I made a while back about the clarity of pessimism as a worldview.
Yes, I've seen it. I made a post a few years ago about the difference between common and philosophical pessimism and Thorongil also had some good posts clarifying something similar though he uses "temperamental pessimist" vs. "philosophical pessimist".
I also think that the pessimists have an aesthetic that the world has an underlying suffering that cannot be avoided whereas Stoics seem to have this optimism that as long as they strengthen their capacity for indifference, this can be largely avoided or overcome. Stoicism goes well with therapy and self-help practices because it provides a solution-based outcome. Stoicism tries to mitigate the fact that life presents itself as a problem (problems) to overcome, and pessimists are quick to point out that life has problems to overcome in the first place and this is not a good thing. Why should people have to cope with the problem? Why be given the problem?
Do you think your conception of the pessimist's position is sufficient?
I think it serves as a bare-minimum position. Like I said above, we are all pendulums swinging around. Sometimes Buddhism works really, really well for me. Other times not so much. But no matter what, the idea that everyone is a fellow suffering that should be treated with respect and compassion rings true to me. It's pure and simple. But it is also lacking some of the structure and meaning that so many of us are so deeply pursuing.
I personally don't think any position is sufficient. I guess another position of some pessimists is that nothing will really work, there are only many attempts at coping with the problems, as your post suggests. There is no Nirvana-like state, and though it is good to be compassionate if we are all suffering together and feel pity for people like us, it doesn't substantially do much to overcome the problem altogether. We can simply alleviate some things at some times for some people.
A pessimist might see the responsibilities and burdens as something one would not want to deal with, and that stoicism, though a way to try to mitigate emotional distress, does not resolve the fact that we are given a problem to have to overcome in the first place. Also, just like the possibility of no Nirvana-like state, the "indifferent" state of the stoic could be more rhetoric and posturing than anything else. Who can out-indifferent the other guy..who has less emotional reaction to situations. Anyways, the fact that one needs to go through the toughening-up program of the indifferent stoic is just more evidence of the fact that people are faced with challenges and responsibilities in the first place. People have to deal with life.
Philosophical Pessimism might be summed up well in this quote:
[quote=Schopenhauer]Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom. This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as though it would satisfy us — an illusion which vanishes when we reach it; or else when we are occupied with some purely intellectual interest — when in reality we have stepped forth from life to look upon it from the outside, much after the manner of spectators at a play. And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The hankering after what is strange and uncommon — an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature — shows how glad we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious.[/quote]
Quoting schopenhauer1
No. I pretty much agree with Hegel that Stoicism ultimately is empty posturing. It gives itself a kind of ideal to reflect on that makes one think these things are answered, but when the rubber hits the road, it's ultimately impotent.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No. Stoicism seems to claim that if you behave the right way, bad things literally cannot happen to you.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think the pessimist ultimately takes the problems of the world seriously in a way that Stoic does not.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Stoicism doesn't consider suffering a bad.
Quoting Pneumenon
Stoicism is anti-existentialist in a lot of ways. It claims that man has an essence, that good is a kind of eudaimonic goal, and that this can be achieved by living in harmony with a pre-established ideal.
You'd have to unpack that statement as it is riddled with assumptions.
In all seriousness, Stoicism works for me, at least, because its ideal state (that of the sage) is more or less impossible, which is good for me, because then I have something to strive for at all times. Additionally, I like Stoicism because it's anti-hedonistic. This is possibly because I'm rather anhedonic most of the time, but also because hedonistic philosophies just look like a recipe for slavishness and misery to me. I also like Buddhism a lot, if that tells you anything.
I suppose that Stoicism may be a form of negative hedonism, but in all honesty, I think that "negative hedonism" is a misnomer. It should be called anti-hedonism.
The emphasis on controlling the emotions is important for me because I'm a grotesquely intense person, so I gravitate toward philosophies whose message can be interpreted as "reign it in ya fuckin' lunatic." I'm also really self-indulgent when left to my own devices, and it can lead to problems, so keeping a mindset of moderation is probably a good prescription for my ills.
I don't consider Stoicism to be good for everyone (is there such a thing as a life philosophy that works for everybody?), but when I read the Stoic texts, they just... resonate somehow.
Fair enough, and I think you made a good point that not all philosophies are going to resonate with everyone. I guess part of my post was to ask whether following Stoic principles justifies or solves the evils of life and thus supposedly renders the pessimist's evaluation moot (if one were to follow the program).
I agree with much of TGW's sentiments. I have a couple follow up questions for TGW:
Quoting The Great Whatever
Can you elaborate on this or give an example?
Quoting The Great Whatever
Can you elaborate on this or give an example?
Nobody disputes that the world is full of suffering. Stoicism seeks to heroically stand against that fact by declaring that nonetheless, this is irrelevant to the world, or really one's life, being good. Even in the worst of worlds the Stoic sage stands strong and is totally unharmed by it. He is unbreakable. There is, on the one hand, the suffering that actually occurs; but then, at a remove from this, there is the way you respond to it, and only what you rationally choose, or fail to choose, can make your life good or bad.
The Stoic thus provides a kind of loophole with which to paper over the 'badness' of the world by redefining badness such that suffering is indifferent as far as it is concerned. The solution is therefore a kind of denial that there is really at bottom a problem, as the pessimist might. It may be hard to live as a sage, but ultimately it is your fault if you don't live a good life, and in principle nothing can make your life bad, and the world itself can't be bad of its own accord.
It seems to me that the pessimist by contrast admits that the world is actually bad. And that admission is important for recovery. Heroic platitudes won't improve the world.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's just a core tenet of Stoicism. Pleasure and pain may be choice-worthy or avoidance-worthy in some respect, but they're not 'good' and 'bad.' Only living in accordance with a certain ideal is. So a person who's tortured, if he sticks to his Stoic guns, might endure extreme pains, but his life would be no worse on that score. Bad things cannot happen to good people.
I very much agree with your characterization of Stoicism. If you can elaborate on a couple more things:
Quoting The Great Whatever
How would you suppose that the pessimist's admission that the world is actually bad is important for recovery versus the heroic platitudes of the Stoic? What makes this admission essential?
a) inaccessible in practice for some
b) wrong due to its emphasis on being disconnected with emotions.
a) It seems inaccessible in practice because there are some who have preconditions that might make it much harder to follow than others. People with mental disorders come to mind. These people might have an extreme uphill climb compared with someone who might not have these conditions in terms of accessing a state of equanimity in terms of emotional detachment or emotional purging. Taking this into consideration, luck and fortune has more to do with becoming a Sage than the Stoic-advocate might like to admit.
b) It seems wrong to purge emotional response as emotions are the first responders to what is wrong with the world. It is telling us something. Our feelings of despair if we see existential emptiness at the end of our endeavors, our feelings of annoyance, our feelings of social unease, physical pain, etc. are giving us a good indication that the world contains forms and elements of suffering. That we need to enter an austere program of purging to rid oneself of something very human, seems a bit off. If we have to become less human to be the best human, than that in itself seems a source for pessimism. Humans, the fallen, overemotional animal that must correct their dispositions. The fact that humans even have to enter such a program is suffering as the process of purging emotion and becoming the indifferent Sage in the face of suffering, is difficult (if it can be achieved at all).
Also, and most importantly, the goal of Stoicism seems akin to a form of sociopathy. Schopenhauer emphasized that true ethical impulse comes from compassion- seeing the suffering in others and wanting to alleviate it. Stoicism, seems to emphasize ethics in terms of virtue. The indifferent Sage does his duty to perhaps be moral, but it is not out of compassion. Emotion seems to be a true component of real ethical impulse. Stoicism seems to rid this element in place of a third-party directive which is to say virtue or Reason, which again, seems oddly enough like a sociopath who happens to be ethical. I don't mean a literal sociopath, but rather someone with similar characteristics- detached, remote, lacking in any emotion. Someone who is literally a sociopath, by definition, would likely act on their lack of emotion or attachment.
Philosophical Pessimism, on the other hand, relies very much on emotion- specifically the emotion of compassion. PP's, out of a sense of compassion for individuals or future potential individuals, recognize the suffering for what it is, without trying to deny what is a given in the world. [It is a given even for the stoic, because clearly, if one has to enter an austere stoic program, the suffering existed in the first place to prompt people to enter the program]. Out of a sense that we are all fellow-sufferers, there is a prompting to want to alleviate it. At best, it is a call for humanity to recognize the suffering and to confront it. There seems to be a two part aspect here. First is the recognition that we are fellow-sufferers (which some conflate to just "complaining"). The second is to try to alleviate it, mitigate future suffering or future sufferers, etc.
@The Great Whatever @Benkei @Thorongil @Pneumenon @Sapentia @darthbarracuda @Bitter Crank @180 Proof @Agustino
Admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery.
There is an important distinction between good and bad on the one hand, and pleasant and unpleasant on the other. That these problems are unpleasant is not necessarily that they're bad or not good. Would life without any such problems really be better? I doubt it. Reducing suffering makes sense to me, but scrapping it altogether isn't worth it in my case, and in others. And the only realistic means of doing so without having to wait a natural lifetime is suicide - which I wouldn't advocate except in exceptional circumstances.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Because it's worth it in most cases. It has been in my case to the present date. Things might go down hill for me to such an extent that in hindsight, I could think that it would have been better to have ceased to continue to live from that point onwards, but, even if so, I still think that it's better to gamble than to fold. Things might remain to be as good as they are, or get better, or get worse; but I don't have a crystal ball.
As an aside, I might directly address your opening post and your key points and questions at a later time, but the quotes that I've addressed above caught my attention enough to make me want to respond immediately.
Is this about Stoicism? Please explain how it connects. But, to answer your position more directly, why is unpleasant not bad? No one can scrap suffering, that is true. Reducing suffering is always good, no one is disputing that. But does reducing suffering via Stoicism justify life's goodness even despite suffering's existence? Is it really a "stock" reply to how life is still good with suffering as it seems to be used on this forum by some members? Does the fact that we even have to have something called "Stoicism" provide evidence that even the solution to reducing suffering is a struggle?
It's about my view contrary to yours. It might or might not reflect stoicism, but I'm not exactly a stoic, or a rigid adherent to stoicism. Hence, for example, I'm not committed to the following:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Rather, I'd say that my views tend to be stoical, or stoic-like, in certain respects. Which is to say that they coincide with the typical connotations of stoicism. The last part is close to my view, but I don't think in terms of a divine Reason, Fate, or Providence that governs nature. It's the indifference to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain which I think has merit.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, unpleasantness is not bad if without it life would be worse off, and/or if it's necessary in order to live a good enough - or even potentially good enough - life. Since a good enough life is achievable in countless cases, it's a worthwhile pursuit for those people.
Reducing suffering via stoicism doesn't need to justify life's goodness. Life's goodness is justification in itself. (N.b. I don't mean to imply that life [i]in itself[/I] is good; rather, I'm talking about the goodness [I]in[/I] life. I acknowledge that there's both good and bad in life, and that there are varying degrees of each). Stoicism is, or at least can be, a good way of dealing with life's problems. They cease to [i]be[/I] problems if dealt with successfully. And yes, life is worth living in many cases, including my own, despite the existence of suffering.
Whether or not it's a stock reply seems beside the point. What's important is the position itself.
Lastly, as to whether the fact that we even have something called "stoicism" counts as evidence that even the solution to reducing suffering is a struggle: yes, it seems so. What of it? It's a struggle worth taking, is it not?
How is life better off with unpleasantness? If you are going to do the "exercise makes us feel better even if it hurts.." routine, just don't. You know what I am talking about with unpleasantness- real suffering- emotional, physical, mental, social, situational, or otherwise. If people must live for a principle outside their own well-being, I'd like to hear it. But, I can see it now, here comes the Nietzschesque "suffering makes us better" schtick :-} . Better as compared to what, of course, does not matter.. some ideal which apparently is the "human-as-sufferer-who-makes-it-out-a-better-person". (But what a cynical reply that would be though.)
Quoting Sapientia
But the problem is people have to "deal" in the first place, and keep dealing, and on and on. We are already alive and have instincts to not die- defending the idea that we must keep going and cope with the situation is not all that hard, and even pessimists will defend it too. However, seeing the fact that we have unwanted responsibilities and suffering is not evaluated as good by pessimists and thus life containing this is suspect.
First off, I'm not a Stoic but I do borrow from them. My take on stoicism (but really, Ciceronianus is the expert on this, you should ask him to reply to this thread) in regards your questions is as follows:
1. No, I would say Stoicism is purely pragmatic so it won't have much to say about existential issues. If it isn't within your ability to control, you let it go. Part of these existential questions can therefore be ignored as arising from a wish to control what cannot be controlled to meet a certain ideal. You either let go of the wish (emotion) or the ideal - the latter appears a more humane answer to existential issues - which is where my earlier comment came from.
2. As far as I know Stoicism has not made an ethical judgment on existence. It does recognise the existence of suffering of course.
3. I don't think the Philosophical Pessimist solves life's sufferings except for the compassionate agent. The rest are trying to retreat from it through ascetism or art and the antinatalist wants to end life altogether.
The compassionate agent though, can be exactly like a Stoic (as I see him), having established suffering exists he goes out to alleviate it by his own power.
Well, since you didn't specify, I was talking about unpleasantness in general. But given your qualification, perhaps you're right that such suffering is bad. Fortunately for both of us, I can indeed save you the "schtick" of arguing otherwise, since it's not essential to my position. I need only argue that there are cases in which suffering is worth putting up with, and there are plenty of those.
Quoting schopenhauer1
As a pessimist, do you defend it ("the idea that we must keep going and cope with the situation")? I do regarding many cases, so if you do too, then we agree. Where we might disagree is if you conclude that life is bad merely from the fact that suffering exists. To do so, you'd have to disregard very strong evidence to the contrary. It's far too simple and one-sided to say that life is bad.
1) Does the Stoic ethic provide an answer to the existential boredom/instrumentality/annoyances/negative experiences/desire/flux/becoming-and-never-being, etc. that the Philosophical Pessimist poses?
I think it does provide an answer to all of these. But, for some of them it’s not an answer that directly addresses (some of the) the pessimist’s problems, rather, the assumptions and principles of stoicism are constructed in such a way that these problems are simply not applicable to stoicism. It’s up to each person to decide whether this is a weakness or a strength. Existential boredom is one of the issues that simply doesn’t arise for a stoic, but rather it side steps the issue altogether by each person having an intrinsic purpose to their life that provides the meaning necessary to avoid existential boredom. One of the strengths of stoicism is that its three disciplines (of desire and aversion, impulse to action, and assent to judgement) are intricately related to stoic physics, ethics, and logic, respectively. “Insofar as we are parts of the human race, we must act in the service to the whole,” (Hadot 1998). So long as one fulfils this purpose, this purpose fulfils them. We must “act the part” that is assigned to us in life by nature. We are parts of the human race and must live according to nature, therefore we must act our roles as parts of the whole. This provides obligation and duty to each person regardless of their social status. There is no way a stoic can, in theory, undergo an existential crisis, because there is always purpose to their life by way of service to mankind.
As for negative experiences, there’s a lot that can be said about the stoic perspective on this. The easiest place to start is with Epictetus, who said that there are things which are under our control; our value judgements (of external events in this example), impulses to action, and desires and aversions – in other words, everything that is within our will. The things not under our control are the body, wealth, reputation, social status, in other words, anything that is not within our will. These things are determined by nature, and have been determined since the beginning of time, and have been a long time coming; they are forces outside our control. One would have to change the initial conditions of the beginning of the universe if one wishes to change what these conditions caused later on. Which is, of course, absurd.
“Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you in advance from the beginning of time. In the woven tapestry of causation, the thread of your being had been intertwined from all time with that particular incident.” (Meditations, book 10, 5).
These things are to be accepted with equanimity. Precisely because these things are not within our control it is unreasonable to wish for them to be otherwise, it’s futile. Easier to conform your will to the world than the world to your will. Furthermore, another stoic principle is that good and evil cannot exist anywhere except in our will, in our hearts. Good and evil are in our intentions when we act towards each other. Things that are not within our will therefore cannot be good or evil. Anything that is not in our control, we have to accept as an indifferent. A thing is neither inherently good nor evil, only thought makes it so. Because of the divine providence the stoics see within the workings of nature, there is nothing that can happen to us that nature has not fitted us to endure. Stoicism does not deny the testing nature of the world, but it is fundamentally opposed in this regard to pessimism, which says (as per your post) that the world is suffering. Nature has endowed us with the virtues of courage, equanimity, self-discipline, and wisdom. All of these we can employ to allow us to love our fate. Nature gives us death, disease, and suffering. But at the same time it also gives us the capacity for the strength to endure these things.
One thing the stoics and pessimists do have in common is their view on the flux of the universe. Marcus Aurelius talks about this at length in his meditations, “perceive the swiftness with which all things vanish away; their bodies in the world of space, and their remembrance in the world of time … how quickly fading and dead.” Or, “what is it that worries you? … Think of all the worries that have now vanished with the dust and ashes of the men who knew them.” “All material objects swiftly change; either by sublimation, or else by dispersion.” I could go on and on, but I hope this suffices.
2) Is Stoicism a kind of Philosophical Pessimism or at least close cousins? If it is not a kind of Philosophical Pessimism, how might they differ?
There are some similarities, but not enough to consider them cousins. Stoicism denies the existence of evil in most of the places pessimism affirms them, i.e. in the world and in our suffering. Stoicism denies a meaningless universe and affirms divine providence, which is why we should love our fate (a stoic does not love his fate because it is a good, but because nature prescribed it just for him). Stoicism purposes an intrinsic value to each human being, as well as duties and obligations to each of them, while pessimism denies all of these. One similarity I can think of is Flux (if by flux you mean constant and unpredictable change, inherited from Heraclitus). The stoics and pessimists also have a somewhat similar view on time. The main thesis of Joshua Foa Dienstag’s book Pessimism is that one of the causes of suffering unique to humans is our consciousness under time; we have the ability to look far ahead and behind in time which in turn causes fear of the future and regret of the past, among other things. While the stoics don’t necessarily make this same claim, they do recommend that we limit our consciousness to the present moment, which is something a pessimist might also recommend, albeit for slightly different reasons. The stoics say that we shouldn’t worry about the past or the future because no one can lose or keep what is already gone in the past, nor what is yet to come in the future – all we have is the here and now. What is in the past and in the future are beyond our control. Seneca says, "cease to hope and you will cease to fear ... Fear keeps pace with hope .. both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present. Thus it is that foresight, the greatest blessing humanity has been given, is transformed into a curse.. A number of our blessings do us harm, for memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely."
3) How might a Philosophical Pessimist's answer to solving life's sufferings be different than a Stoic's?
I think I already covered the basics in my answer to #1, so I won’t bore anyone and belabour the point. There is also so much written by the stoics about death that I don't even know where to start.
I've been thinking about this more and would like to share some thoughts to further the discussion.
From a Buddhist perspective, most suffering is caused by tanha. There are three types of tanha (sensual, being, and not-being). This is the type of suffering that I assume you are most familiar with, as it is strikingly similar to Schopenhauer's posited metaphysical Will. However, this does not cover the suffering caused from external influences, such as a natural disaster. Typically a religious Buddhist would say that this evil was caused by karma.
Karma could, I suppose, be stretched to become a secular idea. By simply looking at karma as the description of causality, one can see how evil arises.
Which leads to the connection to Stoicism. If you can't control something, don't fret about it. The source of non-tanhanic suffering is from conflict with what you cannot control. How you deal with a situation is how you experience a situation.
From this perspective, it seems like there really aren't any problems, related to existence, left. Ideally, if you expunge desire and mitigate conflict, life becomes a quite peaceful and manageable affair.
Buddhism teaches that internal suffering, tanha, is caused by ignorance, attachment, and aversion (to coincide with each of the three types of tanha). Think about war. Think about how much conflict could be avoided if everyone seriously looked at their lives and got rid of these three poisons and therefore tanha and therefore suffering. Would there be war? Would we have conflict?
I think Buddhism diagnosis and prescription usually works, and leads not only to non-suffering but flourishing. And Stoicism is simply how you deal with the remaining suffering, which, incidentally, is what I am now beginning to see as the only type of suffering that makes childbirth harmful. Ebola, for example, is reason enough for a woman to not have a child in Africa. The potential for nuclear war is reason enough to abstain from having children. But abstaining from having children because they might feel bored or feel unsatisfied with something seems very decadent.
This just doesn't ring true to how life works though. We are always going to be annoyed or disappointed at something. As TGW said, it seems more a rhetorical stance than reality. There is no way "pragmatically speaking" people are whistling their way through life's turmoil and annoyances great and small. There might be "times" when someone is able to handle their shit better than others, but that is all. It is no big mitigation. There are just too many contingent factors of uncertainty, annoyances and the like to be so all pervasive a solution. It seems like something to say when there is an audience and people are looking at outward behavior. But, hey, this is a philosophy forum- give me all the anecdotes you want, I can't prove a thing but nor can you in this oblique online forum setting. I am fine with that though. It just means anecdotal evidence is always suspect.
Quoting Benkei
I think that is twisting the rhetoric. A pessimist would say that they are preventing the actuality of future suffering. Life ending might be a consequence, but it is passive and in recognition that there was nothing to be deprived in the first place (just our possible present sadness our projections of no future humans).
The compassionate agent definitely has a ring of appeal to it. What ethical agent wouldn't want to get on board with compassion (besides sado-masochists and Nietzscheans apparently)?
I do have a slightly different take than perhaps a pure Schopenhauerean pessimist on this. I think a large part of the compassion should come from mutual recognition of the suffering. @The Great Whatever was alluding to this I believe in his latest post. Instead of posturing about how much you can overcome suffering, perhaps recognize its inevitable affect on us. Then letting in the aesthetic sensibility that comes with recognizing this inevitable suffering. Once one cultivates an aesthetic sense of the tragedy of the suffering, let this aesthetic sense manifest in the social world. Talk about the suffering, commiserate, bitch.
I'll call this Rebellious Pessimism. You know you can't actually do anything, and you are pretty much stuck, but you are not going to let delusions that it can be overcome or the idea that we must keep producing for producing's sake or the idea that we should try to forget what is pretty much an inevitable reality that pervades life from keeping us from recognizing this tragic aesthetic. You don't rebel by Nietzschean embrace. He had it all wrong. He increased the delusion more. He set a template for many other thinkers and followers to posture and fantasize about embracing (read overcoming) suffering. No, you rebel by recognizing that the suffering that is contained or is existence simply sucks, and that it is not good and recognizing it for what it is. No delusions of trying to twist it into rhetorical flourishes of "goodness" or by accepting it, or by embracing it. No, you have every right to dislike it and you should. The sooner we can rid ourselves of the delusions and recognize the existential dilemmas and contingent sufferings, put it on the table and see the pendulum of survival/goals and boredom, contingent painful experiences, annoyances as real- the instrumentality of all things of the world, then I think we can live with more verity.
It is nihilistic to not recognize the instrumentality of things and deem it as bad. If everything is radical contingency (I don't necessarily believe that), then why not just focus on the hyper-micro feelings of working on a project (and let's forget the instrumentality right?). The project is life as it goes smoothly- the person absorbed in his music/art/work/game/trance. Don't fall into the cracks though, and see the instrumentality that is there in the background, when your mind is not occupied.
Yes, I worried about this because it is out of some Providence and Reason that the ethical actor does their moral deeds, not out of compassion, which arguably might be more of a moral impulse or sense than due to duty or some principle of logic.
Quoting WhiskeyWhiskers
This is the opposite of my idea of Rebellious Pessimism. It is not good to accept suffering. Complaining is fine.. Bitch to your hearts content and be discontent with it because it is always there and unrealistic to think it can be otherwise.
Quoting WhiskeyWhiskers
And the present can be pretty crappy too.
But I read your comment before it was deleted urging me to read your previous replies to other people. So I did.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Eh. How big of a deal are you making this to be? Why are you annoyed? Why are you disappointed? Because your expectations have come into conflict with reality.
Of course it is impossible to get rid of all of our expectations. But knowing the source of your angst actually takes a considerable amount of the sting away from it. Being able to laugh it off is cool.
Fighting life head-on with the attitude that focuses on the negative leads to negativity. Although everyone feels disappointment and anxiety, not everyone is beat down about it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Right. I consider birth to be unnecessary and potentially harmful. It's like eating a cookie that may be stale. Is it worth it? Maybe. Then again you could get food poisoning. In this case, another person is getting food poisoning (disease/illness, accidents, disasters, death).
But it's not something I really get all worked up about, which I sense you are (using my omniscient powers of internet-empathy). Life goes on, as they say.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So, in other words, defeatism.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think this implies that you think everyone else is delusional or masochistic. I'm not necessarily disagreeing, I just want to make this clear.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This whole paragraph screams defeatism to me. Because what better way of amplifying suffering than by focusing on it and actively disliking every aspect of it that pervades your life? Nietzsche thought that the strong would be able to enjoy and relish life in a way that the weak could not. Call it delusional but at least they are enjoying it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
But why? Do you think bitching about it makes it any better? It's completely defeatist!
Quoting schopenhauer1
Only if you make it.
[quote=darthbarracuda]]If you are a philosophical pessimist: why do you not kill yourself right this moment? Are you depressed constantly?
If you do not subscribe to philosophical pessimism (Schopenhauer, Zapffe, Cioran, Benatar), why not?
As a personal side note: I have no idea what the hell I believe. Benatar's logic (antinatalism asymmetry) makes complete sense. Schopenhauer and even some of Zapffe's philosophy seem like fairly accurate descriptions of the human condition. I've fallen into the well of philosophical pessimism and I don't see any way out of the despair of it. I've contemplated suicide a LOT over the past month. If Benatar's asymmetry is correct (which I don't see how it could be wrong), there's absolutely no rational reason to continue to exist. Sure, there's some enjoyment in life, but when you are dead you won't miss that enjoyment. Happiness/pleasure has no effect in the equation, it seems. But when you're dead you'll also miss the suffering accompanying life, which is a pro. And you won't even know you aren't alive anymore. Is the only thing keeping me from killing myself my evolutionary instinct? Why the hell do I continue to get up in the morning, should I just end it all now? I honestly wish I'd never come across these negative positions - they make so much sense and yet have made my life a complete and utter depressive nightmare.[/quote]
I get that you have probably changed your position, and have every right and reason to do so if you feel you have had a conversion of perspective of sorts. Glad to see you don't despair as much, but you clearly get the philosophical argument and have been in the thick of it, or at least in PhilosophyForum land. So, if I think you are trolling a bit, that is because I remember comments like that one above. Again, I get that your pendulum has swung a bit to a more moderate position. That being said, let me try to answer the darthbarracuda that I see in this particular post:
Quoting darthbarracuda
I don't know if it is expectations and reality. Rather, it is just a feeling, the pain can range from as physical as a cut, or the less tangible but still real emotional pain. I mentioned to another poster that radical contingency (the idea that there is either no necessary essence or no determinism behind events of the world) might lead to a nihilism of sorts whereby narrowing focus on a task will try to get you from seeing life in the wider scope of existence itself, thus mitigating angst. This in itself is nihilistic because it is a method of forgetting what the world is presenting when facing the existential condition itself.
Quoting darthbarracuda
If you want to break this down into very basic and pragmatic terms like you are doing here, I can say quite the opposite. Someone who has his head in the sand will feel the disappointments more when the fissures break. Notice you added in "beat down". I didn't say beat down by it. That is automatic- suffering wins by its mere existence. Rather, our reaction should be one of not embrace, not of pretending one can overcome it, but of seeing it for the negativity it is, and recognize we all are all dealing with it, de facto from birth. We were all given the responsibilities of life, the burdens of life, the contingent nature of the world gives us external sufferings as well. If we recognize it, enumerate it, and realize that it is part of being an animal in the universe, the more we can reconcile with it, preferably as a community but at least one by one.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Until your next suffering episode, annoyance, or what not. Heaven, Stoicism, Nirvana.. it's all the same whatever you say in terms of "laughing it off". It's a pipe dream.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Wrong, he is saying they are enjoying it. It is literary sophistry. My mind imagines his ideas attributed to a caricature of someone who did a lot of cocaine and thinking they are the king of the world.
Quoting darthbarracuda
It cannot be defeated. Accepting it is no good either, because no one actually accepts it except in platitudes to make others feel better about it in places like philosophy forums. The less you try to deny it, the less you will feel the unrealistic expectation that you will mitigate it. Accepting it doesn't mean you won't feel it as much, contrary to what some Stoic-minded people will tell you they supposedly do. Rather, accept the fact that it happens, it might be part of being alive and human, and it is ok not to like. The compassion comes in the commiseration. "That sucks, man" is better than "I looketh in the direction of naught..and I feeleth no pain" (with face emotionless and head cocked slightly upwards towards the sky like some mimic of a statue of a Greek philosopher- arrogant and smug).
Also, and perhaps most importantly, the fact that we are given suffering as a given in the first place is something to rebel against. That you overcame it- by whatever means, does not mitigate the fact that you went through it. I don't buy into the idea that you are better for overcoming it. You just wanted to because it was making you suffer. Not overcoming it, made you feel pain, trying to overcome it made you feel pain, and when you are alleviated, it does not stop but you go to the next thing and on and on.
The problem is, that though we can produce things that amaze ourselves and others, we have an abundance of self-conscious capacity makes us need to gravitate to some project to keep the mind from seeing the instrumentality. Distraction is key, but sometimes that does not work. Admittedly, some may be less distracted than others at the end of the day.
Interesting. Most people don't have time to ask existential questions to begin with so it seems that's more "how life works" than what we're doing here. :D
Interesting being that one of the main aspects of culture is religion which has a large existential component to it. Not that I am a huge fan of religion, just saying that this has been the default mode of thinking for many for thousands of years (mainly to their detriment in my opinion). Besides this, I think you discount the common man's ability to self-reflect on his own situation. Most people are not unthinking reflective beasts that simply rush from one activity to the other. Well, one would hope at least. But, if you want to use the ignorance is bliss thing, perhaps that is true. As Zapffe said, distraction, isolation, anchoring, sublimation. Any one of these psychological forces can be employed to try not to think in the broadest terms as one can. If we are always on the microlevel of thought- always focused on the hypersmall, perhaps we can avoid existential anything. This is an ironic paradox being that we have to distract, toil, or be fully in survival mode which is to say not fully experience the human condition to be happier? That would be another tragedy. It is the inverse of many great thinkers- let us distract ourselves with the business of daily life's tasks, let us forget, let us distract, let us anchor. Do not look behind the curtain!
Quoting schopenhauer1
I didn't receive any warnings regarding being mentioned in this thread, and I have been very busy recently, so haven't had time to reply. But I will reply to the point I find most interesting now :)
Quoting schopenhauer1
I am a pessimist at the time being, just not a metaphysical pessimist. That simply means that I believe that in the end, Nature will destroy any particular part from it; the death of the part is inevitable and necessary for the continuation of the whole. As such, every individual is doomed. But this isn't making any judgement on life itself, which would move into metaphysical pessimism.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What would the point of not being indifferent be? The situations are out of your control, whether you care about them or not, that doesn't change the fact that they are out of your control.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's hard to think about this when literarily all our experiences are framed in life. I'm not sure that a life without problems would be good in any sense of the term. Are you?
Well, cows seem to be quite satisfied merely existing on a green pasture. It's only humans that seem to have a problem. So we can't generalise for all life. There are clearly different ways of experiencing the world, and not all of them experience mere existence as a form of suffering.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Can you justify this please?
Quoting Pneumenon
Agreed.Quoting The Great Whatever
What do you disagree with here?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Just because climbing the mountain is harder for some than for others, doesn't mean luck is responsible for those who get to the top. People who have it easy, generally don't grow, because they have no incentive. It is those who suffer a lot who have a real potential for growth. Therefore it is most likely those more disadvantaged by nature who end up close to the sage ideal - they need the big guns.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Stoicism isn't purging us of our emotions, but rather it is, at foundation, a therapy of the emotions, which puts each emotion in its right place.
Quoting WhiskeyWhiskers
Excellent point!
Quoting darthbarracuda
A most excellent post as well! Entirely agree. So many good thoughts in this thread! :) Quoting schopenhauer1
Why dwell on what can't be changed? I prefer focusing my energy on doing at least the things that I can do.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Indeed!
I'll provide further comments when I catch a bit more time! :) This looks like it will be a very interesting discussion, especially with Buddhism also rearing its head...
Maybe. Are you familiar with Hegel's comments on Stoicism?
Quoting Agustino
I think it's possible for bad things to happen to you regardless of what your response is to that happening.
Do you think that life is bad or not? Because it's not clear to me from your reply. In fact, I don't find your reply very clear at all. What is the purpose of this project that you mention? To ignore the instrumentality of things? Meaning, I take it, that things are means to ends? Is that bad or problematic in some way? Why does it matter whether or not everything is radical contingency? And what even is radical contingency?
Whether or not bad things happen to you is determined first by how you define bad, and second by how immersed you are in thinking in those terms. Stoics limited good and bad strictly to moral character, or virtue. To say something is still bad regardless of what your response is, is to assume the conclusion that stoicism is working with incorrect definitions.
I'd like to respond to many more comments, but unfortunately I lack time.
No it isn't. If it was, you could just define bad so that it involves only things that never happened to you, and your life would become perfect (it would have nothing bad in it). So that's clearly false since people don't have that power.
@The Great Whatever
Somewhat. Hard to say as I am unfamiliar with many of Hegel's works other than Phenomenology of Mind, so I don't know if I'm missing something or what exactly you're referring to...
Not to use @The Great Whatever's response all the time, but he had a good one. It's possible for bad things to happen regardless of your response. It just isn't good enough.. Some things are just bad to individuals. Some things are unavoidable in being indifferent to them; they simply defy our inner sensibilities. No one is impervious. Also, the struggle to get to such a height of indiiference where one cannot be touched by pain is itself a painful program of self-denial. One can say self-denial is a form of pain, albeit to get to a "higher" one of the equanimity of a stoic sage.
If problems (ones involving suffering exist), then I don't see why, by logical standards, a life free from suffering would not be good, if one at least views suffering as a negative. Of course, the great line by Schopenhauer is that life can never, even in principle be completely negative free.
Indeed, Schopenhauer recognized this too. Humans are the only animal that can self-reflect and reflect on the pain, emptiness, and tragedy. You also bring up a distinction which many don't seem to make. There is pain as it is lived without reflection and pain that is reflected upon on top of the pain in without reflection. Animals feel pain, animals have needs that can go unsatisfied. They don't know it though. It is not a concept. It may be a vague feeling, and I don't know what it is like to have cow pain, but certainly by empirical evidence they have some version of it.
Look up again at my response to the struggle for equanimity. This is painful as well. Justifying it in an armchair doesn't make it better just because in theory someone "gains" a lot by struggling with their stoic growth regimen.
Well, besides the fact of what I mentioned before, that change for some would be much harder than for others due to preconditions (I am still sticking to this), the point is that we cannot always respond with equinimity. Sometimes we have to deal with stuff which is painful and not be quiet about it. A hypothetical imperative might be that one can live a worse life by living in constant emotional volatility. That's fine. However, pain is unavoidable for most (if not all), is something we are constantly encountering, and something we must contend with. I say it is good to not like that which one would not have wanted in the first place. The world being non-ideal, was not meant for you, it is simply livable enough for you. That we are simply going along with the non-ideality of things, does not mean that this is good. That we can live and thrive in a non-ideal world is not justification for it being non-ideal in the first place.
I was being sarcastic and it didn't convey well. What I was saying was that you can ignore the big picture by hyper-focusing your attention on a detailed project. This does not mean that the problem does not exist. Rather, we are trying to ignore what is clearly there by distracting ourselves. Pain is still there, and existential suffering is still there.
What I was getting at is the notion many want to convey which is that we should just have projects to focus our attention on and not look at the existential emptiness. If there is no necessary truth at the end of things (so the radical contingency theorist might say), then all you can do is focus your attention on discrete projects. I disagree with this and think that if one widens their self-reflecting lens long enough, they will see the instrumentality of things.
That can work with things like boredom or minor annoyances. It's a little bit different when tragedy strikes. A storm that kills thousands of people is not good, period. Responding stoically to such an event is absurd.
I agree about the storm. I also think there is a lack of understanding about motivation. Motivations cause one to act a particular way. Most things in life have various motivations. Being indifferent to what is not-ideal, besides being largely unattainable in practice, discounts the very fact that we are motivated to do anything. This motivation hints upon the "becoming" aspect of life. We are not content, nor can we ever be, when life demands that we desire and want- sources of suffering. There is no way to escape it, even in principle. Thus, no practice of indifference will truly get rid of the Will/flux/becoming.
I also see nothing wrong with recognizing the tragic and rebelling that one would rather it never be there. There is certainly no truth or peace in pretending one can avoid the affects of pain.
The world is constructed in such a way to systematically make people suffer, as if it were 'designed' like that. Those systematic forces are too fundamental to be changed with banalities about 'just enjoying life.'
Sure, the problem exists, but we have some degree of control over how much of a problem we make it. Stoicism advocates a method of reducing this problem. A method which is beneficial for many. What's wrong with that?
I get the sense that your position is defeatist. Antinatalism is definitely defeatist in the sense that it gives up on finding a good enough reason to believe that life is and would be worth living in numerous cases.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Why do you disagree with that? What's wrong with doing so? Are you suggesting that we instead ought to focus more on the "existential emptiness", even if it makes us miserable? And again, what is so special about the "instrumentality of things"? If I see the instrumentality of things, then... what?
The problem is that we have to "deal" with the problems in the first place. The fact that we need Stoicism in the first place tells us something.
Quoting Sapientia
The problem is that at the end of the day, if everything is instrumental, no thought-process or practice (like Stoicism) will win you anything. To repeat what I said earlier: We are not content, nor can we ever be, when life demands that we desire and want- sources of suffering. There is no way to escape it, even in principle. Thus, no practice of indifference will truly get rid of the Will/flux/becoming.
But what good is it to merely point that out? We're going round in circles here. I already acknowledged that the problem exists. It's just a fact of life. [i]It's how we react to the problem that matters[/I]. You can either learn to deal with it or give up. I propose the former.
Quoting schopenhauer1
How so? I still think you need to spell out exactly what you mean by saying that everything is instrumental, and the supposed significance of what that would entail. I'm guessing that you mean something like: all acts are pursued as a means to an end, such as attaining satisfaction or contentedness, but that this is futile, as we never reach the end. If so, I disagree. I think that a wealth of evidence suggests otherwise.
Perhaps, rather, you think that the end is attainable, but is only fleeting. (Although then it wouldn't be the case that everything is instrumental). In that case, if you draw a negative conclusion, I'd say that you need to look at the bigger picture. It's moments like these that make life worth living for many people.
Stoicism is obviously of benefit if it reduces the problem, which it does in many cases. So it's not true in all cases that you don't "win" anything.
Quoting schopenhauer1
To say that we're [i]not[/I] content is as warped as saying that we [i]are[/I] content. It's misguided to make such sweeping statements. It's obvious that we're sometimes content and sometimes not. No amount of sophistry will change that fact.
It's true that we have desires, and that these desires can be, and at least sometimes are, the cause of suffering - both minor and major. But, at times, some of them are satisfied, and some of them we are not conscious of, and some of them don't bother us so much, so that at such times we are content. We do have some degree of control over how much our desires affect us, and we can use this to our advantage.
It's a painful program of self-denial to deny that a state of contentedness is achievable, and that also involves a struggle, but with that program, if successful, the outcome is guaranteed to be entirely negative, and the struggle would not be worth it from the get go.
With stoicism, on the other hand, one can achieve positive results. So the struggle might pay off and turn out to have been worthwhile. But, even if not, isn't it better to have at least tried, rather than to have given up before having even attempted a resolution?
Very well, but what does this have to do with how one ought to respond when bad things happen? Spinoza who schopenhauer1 mentioned along with the stoics would agree that bad things can happen even to a sage sub specie durationis. But this doesn't change the fact that when bad things happen it is better to have a stoic response than any other as it limits the suffering experienced; furthermore, a stoic response is necessarily couched in a view sub specie aeternitatis: we can only bring ourselves to respond stoically because we understand and feel that we are eternal
I forget the exact passages, but I have often mumbled to myself, as if they were a Buddhist mantra, some variation of the forceful insights Aurelius has on death, who, excepting Schopenhauer, has done more than any other philosopher to destroy the fear of death in me. Whenever I am caught up in a blaze of agitation, I force myself, as it were, to think of death and my own demise, and suddenly things are put in their right perspective and my agitation becalmed.
As for Stoicism's relation to pessimism, I would say they are perfectly compatible, though only the latter seriously understands the metaphysical significance of suffering, whereas the former merely provides helpful remedies for it.
I have moderated my position. Yes, I remember that post I made a year ago...when I was very angsty and depressed. I am getting better now. And I can assure you I am not trolling.
Furthermore, I don't quite see the importance of understanding my position. Isn't it enough to read what I have posted in this thread without trying to piece together what my entire philosophy is? That's going beyond the scope of the thread. I have supplemented you with my thoughts on the topic (of pessimism vs stoicism), and whether or not this contradicts something I said over a year ago shouldn't really have any basis in the discussion.
Quoting schopenhauer1
"Just a feeling"? I do not understand. Feelings do not arise spontaneously and for no reason. Pain arises to notify the subject that they are in a potentially dangerous and harmful situation. And the emotional pain: what causes this? What perpetuates this feeling? Buddhism answers this by the doctrine of dependent origin: every dharma arises due to another dharma.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Sure, but they also live their life prior to their disappointment with hyperbolic glee. I don't endorse the path of ignorant optimism, but neither do I endorse the path of extreme precautionary pessimism. Both kill the human spirit. There must be a balance for the human to thrive. I agree with you that we shouldn't stick our heads in the sand, but neither should we dread the future. Prepare for the worst, expect the mediocre, but hope for the best.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Perhaps not enjoying as one would enjoy an ice cream sandwich, but rather relishing it because it gives them power. Nietzsche thought people were motivated by power. You offer a child the opportunity to be "virtuous," and the child will scratch their head, he said. But you offer them the chance to be stronger, fitter, sexier, and better than their friends and peers, and the child will immediately perk up. Nietzsche was appealing to what he felt was our intrinsic drive for power. I don't entirely agree with him; I think ultimately the race for power is a rat race that only perpetuates our suffering, but I do find his texts to be motivating for me to better myself as a person.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You are approaching this in the way a quarterback approaches the opponent: head on. Which doesn't really do much other than throw you right at it and leave you bruised and broken.
How you do know how other people experience? I see no argument of yours against Stoicism except for "contrary to what they supposedly do."
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is a most excellent stereotypical straw man of the Stoic.
But of course you wouldn't like to be the noble Stoic, rather, the angsty, Rust Cohle-esque pessimist, with a dark, sullen face cast away from the sunlight by the sheer malevolence it has upon the being. No, better to have never been, and better to bitch and sulk about it than to take steps to overcome the problem. Being a Stoic is bland, being a pessimist is cool, hip, attention-grabbing and contrarian. Or am I just straw-manning your position?
I've been reading through the comments in this thread and felt like making one in response to this. I would say that you do know what it is like for the cow to feel pain, for any sentient animal is going to feel physical pain in generally the same way, owing to their neurological makeup. Consider also that thought often disappears in the moment of great pain. One operates on basic instincts and muscle memory when this occurs, not on any cold syllogisms of reason.
The latter are unintended but welcome side effects of our position. ;)
In all seriousness, the day pessimists are considered anything but unwanted cranks interrupting The Glorious Progress of the Human Race™ is the day I buy a hat in order to eat it.
I'm picking up on the sarcasm here, but this is actually very important to the discussion, I think. The average depressive attitude of the pessimist does not logically follow from the conclusions of pessimism.
Quoting Thorongil
Can't argue with this. Pessimism will never garner strength as a major philosophy because most people are unfortunately brainwashed into the progress mentality. It runs against all they have been taught.
But is everyone bothered by that? Sometimes I like having desires, even when they aren't met. Sometimes I like the struggle. And sometimes not. It really depends.
But whether this bothers me or not depends very much on my mood. If I'm depressed, I will tend to agree with you, as I did in my PM. But now I feel differently and am not really disturbed by the matter. And I do experience positive enjoyment, some contentment, and even joy at times. Those moments are certainly worth it to me. Whether all the bad ones overshadow the good is a judgement that very much depends on how I feel at the moment. So it becomes a very subjective thing.
But there is progress, and that's undeniable. It's not evenly distributed, but the trend has been toward better nutrition, sanitation, shelter, educational opportunities, more avenues for entertainment, more opportunities to travel, and improved communication. There is also a growing knowledge base in various subjects which can lead to future improvements.
Now as to whether any of that deals with the fundamental condition of being born is a different matter. But I personally would much rather live with today's advantages than what was available in the Middle Ages.
I know several people who have run the Grand Canyon or up a 14,000 foot mountain without altitude training, both of which are dangerous and very exhausting. But they tell me how much they liked doing it.
I experience both on a regular basis. In one state, the pessimistic position seems very convincing. In another, it seems highly debatable. After all, who are pessimists to tell the rest of us whether our own lives are worth living or not? Is not that up to us?
Fair enough, but I just thought it was odd that you put up so many threads on pessimism, even recently. Being that I usually back up Philosophical Pessimism, these threads clearly draw my attention, but I don't know why you post them unless you don't feel the matter is settled on its efficacy or truthfulness and want to be convinced? Or, do you like seeing people like me take on the majority of posters who clearly will not agree? I agree with you though, that your motivations for posts have absolutely nothing to do with the actual content and for all intents and purposes, does not matter to this thread or forum. I think it was just an oddity I saw and I mentioned it.
I just see that as a potential flaw in the pessimist position. It's one thing to note everything that sucks about life, it's another to convince people of this if they don't feel that way. Because some people feel that life is worth living despite the sucky parts.
As a metaphor for this, I used to run middle distance and cross country competitively. It hurt. There was a certain amount of suffering in the training and racing, and one didn't always feel like putting forth the required effort. But whether it was worth it or not completely depended on one's attitude. If you wanted to race and improve, then the suffering was worth it. If not, then it wasn't and people either quit or muddled through until the end of the season. And I know this firsthand, because I experienced both wanting to compete, and not wanting to. It made all the difference.
Well, yeah. If it's the heat death of the universe, I'm not getting too depressed about that. Of course I'm not going to be around for those billions of years, so there's that.
I'm going to guess that our impending deaths are unsettling because our lives are so short, relative to deep time, and it seems like just yesterday when we were 20 years younger. But if they weren't, we might view that matter a bit differently. A billion year life span could provide you with all the existence and experiences you ever want. And when reflecting upon how several decades seemed to fly by, one would shrug and say, well I still have 890,000 more decades to go.
I do realize that such lifespans sound completely hellish to pessimists, but I'm going to assume that extremely long lifespans are accompanied by many other improvements.
I can't prove a link here. But there does seem to be a definite correlation between curmudgeonly thinking and bitter superiority.
Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
Which leads me to believe he felt people who derived pleasure from socializing with other people were stupid and petty.
Rascals are always sociable, more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others' company.
Even more so. It's just masturbatory self-inflation. For a man who thought the ego was an incarnation of the Will and therefore a source of suffering, he sure does have a knack for blowing it up.
To live alone is the fate of all great souls.
Repeat ad nauseam[i].[/i]
The problem I see with the picture of the cynical, smartass intellectual caricature is that it is too easy for any person to become a cynical smartass and think this is a direct correlation to their intellectual prowess.
Richard Feynman (although mocked in the philosophical community for his attacks on philosophy) was indisputably one of the most influential theoretical physicists of our time. He was also a major party-goer and womanizer.
Albert Einstein, on the other hand, was much more reclusive and quiet; your stereotypical "genius".
I think Schopenhauer had a bad case of of a bad attitude and was pissy that his colleagues were getting dates and lectures while he wasn't. So he became caustic and bitter and transformed it into a kind of miserable pride.
Certainly doesn't help one's attitude toward life.
Or maybe he was bitter, caustic and anti-social which drove people away, and thus he masked that with his own inflated sense of self-worth.
Quoting Agustino
Geniuses are mere mortals too. Without the unwashed masses Schopenhauer mocked, he would be spending all his time trying to feed and cloth himself, instead of writing great works of philosophy. Society afforded him the opportunity to do otherwise.
The real genius comes from collective humanity, building up on itself and providing the opportunities, not accomplished individuals, who are fortunate to be born when and where they are, and get to stand on the shoulders of millions who came before them.
In my experience, really smart guys can have a lot of trouble with women. This is not always the case, but very often is.
And it's not mere disdain in Schopenhauer's writing. If he really was that superior to the masses, why did he devote so much time to excoriating them? There is a definite slant to his writing that speaks of bitterness and disappointment. I'm not saying that he wasn't a genius. I'm saying that, if his isolation was truly a result of his genius, then why didn't he just ignore the stupid masses? He was rich, after all. It's not as if he couldn't isolate himself if he wanted to.
Incidentally, Einstein chased quite a few ladies - and frequently, they allowed him to catch them.
My mistake.
That's surely seductive talk to any woman. Or how about...?
[quote=Schopenhauer]The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower is it in reaching maturity. Man reaches the maturity of his reasoning and mental faculties scarcely before he is eight-and-twenty; woman when she is eighteen; but hers is reason of very narrow limitations. This is why women remain children all their lives, for they always see only what is near at hand, cling to the present, take the appearance of a thing for reality, and prefer trifling matters to the most important. [/quote]
Often those people aren't simply smart, they are also shy or timid. This wasn't the case for Schopenhauer. Many of the others who are smart and are "bad" with women are simply unwilling to humiliate themselves or lose their dignity in their pursuit of women. Hence, they are unwilling to do many of the things others are.
@mcdoodle... This is pathetic. You should be aware that Schopenhauer is doing metaphysics, and as such he's talking about the position that Nature has allotted to women. His talk is not meant to be seductive at all; an entirely different form of discourse.
Secondly, do you have any objections to what Schopenhauer is stating there? Or are you just mocking him? In philosophy one ought to think, instead of merely vomiting out the commonly accepted opinions of a particular age. In fact, I see nothing insulting in what Schopenhauer is stating. It's no more insulting than saying that men don't have to carry a child and be weakened for 9 months of their lives. It's a historical fact that, in general, women were not gifted by Nature with the capacities for reason that man has. Check out the number of geniuses who were men. Compare this with the number of geniuses who were female. Now you'll tell me it's because females were oppressed through history... okay then, compare the number of geniuses who are female vs geniuses who are male today. Richard Feynmann, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, etc. It's no competition. There never was. But this is not to say that women are sub-human or anything like that. It's merely to recognise a biological fact, which is what Schopenhauer is doing. Schopenhauer also recognises advantages of women over men: such that women have a much more developed faculty of dissimulation and deception than men. Such that women are better educators and teachers. Such that women often display greater affection and compassion than men. But you, in a trance with temporarily accepted values of women being entirely equal to men, fail to see this.
Now the fact that your average woman in Western society today would feel insulted by those sentences says nothing of their truth, but merely proves Schopenhauer's point. Schopenhauer does not mean to say that no woman can have a more developed faculty of reason than most men. He merely means to say that such would be an abnormality in Nature, not the general trend. He has justified his points, if you actually spent your time reading the two texts, by explaining how they fit in with our biological evolution. Women evolved to fulfill different roles than men: therefore they are better at some things, and inferior at others.
Metaphysics? LOL. What he was doing is degrading half the human race due to his cultural prejudices as the privileged gender. There is nothing metaphysical about that.
Quoting Agustino
The average male would be insulted too.
No it's not. And it's scientifically false. You want to know what the truth is? We all begin life as females. You might have noticed that you have nipples. Prenatal hormones differentiate males from females in the womb.
You want to know something else? Women live longer than men on average, despite those difficult nine months of labor.
Sorry my friend. Historical evidence strongly disagrees with you. Your "scientific proof" must agree and be capable to explain other empirical facts as well.
Quoting Marchesk
Ok, I never disagreed, this may be true :)
Historical evidence that is written by man simply because man has bigger, stronger muscles. You may also recall that practically every single war was waged by a man who wanted to show the world how big his penis was.
You're bordering the naturalistic fallacy here. Just because women are suitable for giving birth and raising children doesn't mean that's all they can or ought to do.
No, historical evidence written by the facts. The scientific/philosophical developments have, historically, been driven mostly by men. This is undisputable. It's not only historical accounts which justify this, but also the utter lack of evidence of a similar number of scientific inventions/discoveries or philosophical systems developed by women.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I never said that that's all they ought to do, and neither did Schopenhauer as a matter of fact...
You and I do not disagree that male humans have been the dominant force in "progress" and development. What we disagree on is why this is. I believe females have the potential to be just as good as males at many things, and even surpass in some areas that are even dominated by males today. But they have been systematically oppressed in the past simply because they did not have the physical strength and brutish testosterone that males do. The male/female role has become an unfortunate crevice in the social fabric, one that will be difficult to mend, and so many females are content (or feel obligated) to "stay in the kitchen" while the males do all the development.
Quoting Agustino
What he was saying is that because this is the way he thought women were, he felt women could not do anything outside of that. He was criticizing females without understanding why they are that way to begin with.
darthbarracuda is a little too kind here. You are committing a textbook naturalistic fallacy here. You didn't say it was women ought to do. Instead you (and Schopenhauer) used a discourse of generalisation to set-up a particular set of expectations and ideas surrounding what women do. What you (and Schopenhauer) are doing here is not making scientific observation (e.g. most prominent philosophers are men), but rather misusing a scientific observation to proclaim people with specific traits (men and women) are "naturally" something irrespective of there existence, such that all we need to "know" a person of that group is this "logically necessary" nature.
This is the naturalistic fallacy in all its ugliness. It states that people (in this case intelligent women), who are the result of human biological evolution, are "abnormal," are against the nature evolved humans. Despite the fact those intelligent women are a product of human evolution and so are just as "natural" or "normal" as any other person.
It is not only anti-scientific, but also a deep-seated understanding about what men and women are "meant to be." The intelligent women is considered "abnormal," a failure of human nature, because she doesn't fit (supposedly) what human women are mean to be.
What justification do you have for this when it comes specifically to rational capabilities? (I've already agreed there are quite a few things women are generally better at than men)
Quoting darthbarracuda
Keep in mind that testosterone is essential to developing traits of perseverence (along with aggression) as well, so biologically, women aren't as perseverent as men simply because they lack quantities of this hormone that men have. In fact, women have about 7 to 8 times as less testosterone as men. This may possibly be one of the reasons why we don't see many philosophical/scientific achievements from women.
Quoting darthbarracuda
No, this doesn't follow. He's not criticizing at all. You read it as criticism, he's just stating how things are, without judging that this is good or bad. You read what he says, and immediately judge that he's saying something bad about women, which he is not.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
This is patently false. Schopenhauer is in fact stating that the Platonic idea of women is as he describes it. It doesn't follow that every women is, by logical necessity, like that. However, it does follow, that there will be a tendency for women to be like that. But this does not enable one to "know" a priori what a particular representation of the Platonic idea of women (a particular woman) is like. Why? Because representations fail to match the Platonic idea - they are merely distorted shadows of it.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No, this isn't considered a failure from any particular individual point of view. Remember that the interests of Nature and the interests of individuals are different, that is precisely why Nature uses deceptions in the form of irrational instincts to control a large share of our behavior. As per Schopenhauer, women who are intelligent would only be "failures" in comparison to the Platonic ideas (meaning merely that they do not represent this idea in its complete form). Hence the fact that they do not represent the Platonic idea as faithfully as other women do isn't a reason for considering themselves "failures". There is no prize in representing the Platonic idea faithfully; from the individual's point of view, it doesn't matter. It's only from the species point of view that it matters: and even there, it only matters that most women aren't like this, not that all aren't.
As such, intelligent women are no more failures than I am a failure for displaying a very sensitive (and hence weak, unmanly) nature. Moreover, I may even greatly admire intelligent women: my interest is not the same as Nature's.
Google "female scientists". Hypatia, Lovelace, Carson, Curie, etc. Plus I happen to personally know five successful female scientists and engineers.
What justification do you have for the position that women do not have as well developed rational capabilities?
Quoting Agustino
Source?
Quoting Agustino
So what is he saying?
Apparently "he's just stating how things are", but I don't buy it. Seems more like sexist bias to me.
If that's the "official" Stoic response, than how about a stoic-like response? A similar position, but not as extreme as the one that you've been criticising, in which one seeks to deal with life's problems by not allowing them to negatively affect you to your detriment. It can work (though not always, in every case, necessarily).
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yeah, or hunger, and so on. But even solving their manifestations through technology or whatever still leaves you with the basic structural problem which is more something like...I don't know, sensitivity which is required for life plus entropy? Or if your Buddhist inclinations prefer, dukkha. Though even that's not enough, because it often takes the form of the 'real deal' pain, not stupid self-help 'oh I'm unsatisfied with my life' bullshit.
The latter is evidence that, if there's not enough pain in a person's life, that person will typically invent some.
That wasn't my point at all. Problems affect us for various reasons, but we have at least some control over the extent and duration to which they negatively affect us.
Dukkha is pretty much synonymous with dissatisfaction.
What is this metaphysical structure you are referring to? If we get rid of the manifestations of it, then the structure is no longer apparent.
Quoting The Great Whatever
I don't know what you're saying here.
Quoting The Great Whatever
By "real deal" I assume you are referring to pain caused by nociceptors. Presumably this could be solved by technology.
As Schopenhauer said:
[quote=Schopenhauer]If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature.[/quote]
This is rather ironic given our previous discussion on page 2, in which I said that unpleasantness is not bad if without it life would be worse off (basically the same point that Schopenhauer makes above), and you questioned this and scoffed at what you called the Nietzschesque "suffering makes us better" schtick.
At least, it'd be the better of two evils. But I still say that it's an evil worth putting up with in many cases.
No, Schopenhauer is not saying we should embrace suffering, or that this is good, just that it exists. That we have two bad choices, suffer here, or suffer there doesn't paint a good picture of the situation. If anything, it implies there is no real escape from a form of suffering.
But I didn't say that that's what he's saying. I said that he's basically saying that life would be worse off without it (thus making us better off in comparison), and that is clearly what he is saying. He's clearly saying more than that it exists. Do you disagree?
I do. He is saying there is suffering in the goals/desires and there is suffering when we get our goals/desires.
Wow. Are you sure you're reading the same quote? Do I have to break it down bit by bit? Ok, let's do that.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I.e. if the world didn't have suffering.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I.e. we'd be worse off.
I didn't say scientists or engineers. I said geniuses. The likes of Albert Einstein, Newton, Da Vinci, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, etc. From the list you have provided none count with the exception of Marie Curie, who comes closest to genius.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Historical lack of evidence for as great a number of geniuses amongst women as amongst men. Take the number of great scientists who were men, great philosophers, etc. It doesn't compare. Which woman is as great a scientist as an Einstein, Darwin, or Newton etc.? Which is as great a philosopher as a Plato, Socrates, Kant, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, Wittgenstein, etc.? Probably none.
Quoting darthbarracuda
For the role of testosterone? Because the remaining bit is a direct conclusion from knowing the role testosterone plays.
Quoting darthbarracuda
In relation to this discussion, that women generally do not have as developed faculties of reason as men do. This isn't an insult, it's just a fact. If you want more details, just read the two texts I suggested.
I don't see the connection. In fact, all I'm seeing here is a generalization; i.e. how Schopenhauer himself feels he would react to such a situation being applied to everyone across the world. Schopenhauer doesn't explain why such a utopia would lead to chaos and suicide, he just asserts it. It's sophistry.
But why? This is the question.
Kant did not just pop out of the womb and write his Critique. He had access to education, something females did not at the time. Darwin didn't just "write" the Origin. He had access to education, money, ships for exploration of the Galapagos, etc. What were the females given? Very little in comparison. Can you imagine the contributions that would have come from female intellectuals had they been given access to education and resources?
Quoting Agustino
I want a scientific source that says testosterone has a role in perseverance.
Lol... women also had access to education, especially when they came from the upper classes. Most of philosophers and scientists were quite well off as well; the common folk didn't have access to education, both men and women. The field was leveled at the top.
Quoting darthbarracuda
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/faculty/josephs/pdf_documents/EdwardsComment_MehtaJosephs.pdf
Just as a quick example.
"I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man."
Whatever qualms one has about the notorious essay On Women, one ought to realize that if one compiled an essay containing all the disparaging things said about men found across his writings, then it would dwarf the size of the former essay by quite a large degree. Schopenhauer primarily takes issue with the masses, the great herd of humanity, which includes the majority of men and women, for they represent a vast cauldron of ignorance, superstition, violence, gullibility, and incivility.
I like this question, but I'm not too sure about what the latter position entails. Could expand on what you mean by it?
Hi Thorongil, I actually started a new thread on this particular subject as I thought it was a bit different than the general Pessimism vs. Stoicism in this thread. I would say check out the conversation me and TGW are having there, and then see if it makes more sense.
Quoting Sapientia
Please, don't be condescending or anything...
Quoting Sapientia
You probably have to read his whole text, but he doesn't like the suffering involved in NOT being in a paradise of luxury and ease either. In fact, much of his pessimistic criticism is on tasks, burdens, survival, discomforts, etc. Ya know, the NON-paradise stuff.. So now in this particular quote, he is saying "That is not all folks..despite ALL that suffering of goals/desires/survival that we have to deal with, EVEN if we DIDN'T have this to contend with we'd STILL be unhappy with the emptiness of dwelling in existential boredom."
Quoting Sapientia
No, I'm pretty sure he finds both poles bad. Even if one may lead to worse things than the other, it all leads to suffering. He doesn't like the goals/desires/survival or the boredom. He is just stating how existence swings like a pendulum from one to the other and neither is satisfactory.
Boredom is unpleasant. I don't see that as sophistry. Humans perceive existential emptiness and need tasks to occupy their time so as not to dwell on the unsatisfactory of simply being.
Yeh, we'd be worse off, like I said. I edited my previous comment when I realised that he probably thought that both scenarios were bad, but I think I left it too late, since you replied to the earlier version. I added the following:
Quoting Sapientia
Fair enough. There is no other option except suicide, and Schop doesn't like suicide as he thinks it is still someone's will, willing, the end of their phenomenal reality, which according to Schop is not ending the metaphysical root of the will.
He also said: [quote=Schopenhauer]Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment — a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to an answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.[/quote]
@Thorongil probably has better insight into his ideas about suicide and how he feels this wouldn't be a good alternative. It has something to do with distinguishing the will-to-live through ascetic renunciation vs. forcefully killing yourself in a "willful" fashion that actually embraces the will, even if it is to will one's own demise.
I know both essays, it was jamalrob here who a year or two ago encouraged me to read Schopenhauer because of Sch's great feeling for music, and I'm glad I followed his advice. It seems to me that for its time 'Metaphysics of love' is trail-blazing and interesting. I'm amazed you think you can endorse 'On women', though, which I find extremely misogynistic. it argues, for example, that married women should be entirely deprived of property, as well as its various ill-founded remarks about people's 'nature'. If you think the present-day evidence supports as a 'fact' the notion that 'women generally do not have as developed faculties of reason as men do' then you are looking at different evidence from what I see.
Interesting points about suicide, by the way.
I don't agree with everything in "On women". For example I disagree about property ownership. But I do agree with Schopenhauer regarding the faculty of reason. And again, I think both Schopenhauer and I mean to speak more about genius in that phrase then the common folk. The difference is small in the common folk, it only becomes visible in people of genius. That's why you can easily have women who are scientists, engineers, philosophers, etc, but you find it really really difficult to have women who are geniuses in these fields.
Fundamentally, Schopenhauer would disagree with this because, by necessity, if Will is ever-present and really is the noumenal flip side to phenomenal existence, there is no program that will actually distinguish Will- the cause of much suffering, except moments of aesthetic contemplation (especially on tragedy), cultivating compassion for fellow-sufferers, and outright renunciation of the phenomenal cycle of desire/goals. I am not sure how far I would go along with Schop's preference for asceticism as an answer because it is similar to Stoicism in certain ways, but goes much further in its lifestyle. Again, you might have to ask someone like Thorongil how Schop doesn't get himself twisted in his own paradox, because if every act is an act of willing, then even renounciation would be will..but perhaps Will can be employed in its own demise, just for the amount of time it takes to be "free" from its cravings..But again, @Thorongil seems to have a more developed idea about how this can be the case.
Just in my own view, it is not that I think that certain practices FOR SOME PEOPLE, can possibly help them out (even if it is just by self-delusion), it is that, even under the best of material circumstances (i.e. First World Problems), there is an exhausting nature to existence itself- to just being. And as @The Great Whatever indicated, it's hard to gauge what people really think when they evaluate life on a philosophy forum. In the moment of living, it can be very exhausting, one thing after another, and at the end of it emptiness, but in rhetorical forums as this, or in hindsight questionnaires, people tend to Pollyannize the situation when trying to evaluate the world. I can't prove it. No doubt, people's anecdotes can be taken as the truth with no reason to give pause or one can be more suspect of it.
Indeed. And that's what constitutes the naturalistic fallacy. People are never Platonic idea(l)s. No human ever is. A Platonic idea(l) of a person has nothing to with any existing person at all. It is nothing more than a value, an expectation, an idea of what someone (in this case do), do "by their nature," while completely ignoring their nature (as states of existence are never the Platonic idea(l)).
The Platonic idea(l) of women is no description of women. No woman is like it because any woman, by definition, is an existing state rather than a Platonic idea(l). But that's the problem. It means that Platonic idea(l)s are useless with respect to describing people who exist. In terms of understanding the nature of people, the Platonic idea(l) gives nothing.
So... to apply the Platonic idea(l) to the question of understanding any existing person (in this case women) is incoherent. It is a contradiction. It attempts to say that a Platonic idea(l) tells us something about someone even though that's exactly what it can never do, as an existing thing never amounts to the Platonic idea(l). People aren't even distorted shadows of Platonic idea(l)s.
Thus, this Platonic idea(l) of women is, rather than any sort of description of living women, nothing more than as excuse to reveal in the idea men a geniuses over women. It is concerned not with talking about living women, but rather enshrining a sense of what women are, what they can do, what they are meant to be. It is deep-rooted sexism rather than honest description of the world. It is the practice of setting an assumption about the nature of women in discourse, which automatically applied without any consideration of an existing woman (whether they be a genius or not). It is actually an understanding of what women are and are meant to do masquerading, simultaneously, as non-description (Platonic idea(l)) and description ("but I'm just describing how women geniuses are rare" ).
It could be mitigated, but new pains would arise. Those who medically cannot feel pain do not by that token have 'good' lives in any sense.
How so?
TGW, you say the stoic response is to do nothing, but this is just false. Say a tornado comes and kills your family. The stoic response is to avoid becoming obsessed about the tragedy, and instead attempt to move on with your life and make the best of what is left behind (and this is not doing nothing). Of course you'll still be hurt by the tragedy itself, but at least you won't continue being hurt years and years afterwards by your obsession about it (replaying the events in your mind, etc.). If you disagree with this response, then I am asking you: what should your response be? What is the response that minimises suffering if not this stoic one?
How is that not doing nothing? The response is 'not to...'
Quoting Agustino
I disagree with the framing of the question. It should be, how should we prevent getting hit by tornadoes? What really minimizes suffering is of course anti-natalism. Barring that, I think a reasonable Cyrenacism is the way to go, though that doesn't entail any specific life advice (that I don't think philosophy should endeavor to give).
Quoting The Great Whatever
To avoid is to do something, like when the driver of a car swerves to avoid a pothole.
Yes, not obsessing is doing something when you take into account that most people would obssess in that situation.
Quoting The Great Whatever
But we can't prevent getting hit by tornados or any other potential tragedy. At least we can't prevent it in many circumstances. So what are we supposed to do in those cases? Despair?
And how is "reasonable Cyrenacism" helpful in any way? If there is no specific life advice, then how does it improve any situation?
So not doing something is doing something? Wild...
Quoting Agustino
Not with that attitude!
Quoting The Great Whatever
Yes, because in many cases not doing something is harder than doing something. Hence it also counts as a doing merely because it takes active effort.
Nevertheless, the Stoic solution is, as I said, not to do anything.
Quoting Agustino
No, but you are asking the wrong questions. I think the question of what to do with pain is misguided – there isn't a way to put band-aids on it, but it can to a limited extent be prevented. Stoicism often bleeds into vulgar 'self help' philosophy: don't eat too much! and so on. It's also in a sense reactionary, in that it takes the universe to just naturally be what it is, with it (sometimes literally) being impossible to change, and hence one has to buckle down and accept one's lot (which includes its suffering) rather than take seriously the possibility it might change.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Depends how you define "not doing anything". If whatever you're doing takes effort, then it's not "not doing anything" in my books. Simple as that.
Quoting The Great Whatever
*facepalm* What does the prevention of pain have to do with what attitude we should adopt when we can't or fail to prevent it? Don't you see the blindingly obvious: that the stoic attitude doesn't tell you not to do anything in your power to prevent pain, BUT RATHER provides you with an attitude to have against the pain that you can't - or fail to - prevent? Sorry to be so upfront, but what you're saying is so asinine and puerile that it's almost not even worth addressing. You leave questions that I asked before unanswered, and you don't seem to be looking for a discussion. If you are right, then please show us where we're going wrong, because I'm sure all of us want to learn and make our lives better. But right now, you're pissing me off because you don't address things completely, and it seems I have to work to get any information out of you. It seems you feign your lack of understanding about what I or Sapientia mean.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Well, sometimes one really has to buckle down... I fail to see how this wouldn't be the case, unless we became Gods.
"O Stoic, misfortune has befallen me. What shall I do?" "Not this, not that." "What then?" "..."
Quoting Agustino
But it doesn't provide you with an attitude in the first place, it just pettily moralizes about how grieving is stupid. "Suck it up" literally means nothing -- search it round and round, and you will find there is literally nothing you can actually do that corresponds to what the Stoic tells you to do. The Stoic essentially says, just be such that whatever bothers you, doesn't, or doesn't as much. There's no advice.
And again the idea that the universe is fixed and unalterable and that your suffering is beyond your control does stop you, if you take it seriously, from preventing further suffering. And after all, you have a solution for alleviating it, just do nothing and it will somehow not be bad anymore.
Quoting Agustino
I doubt it.
Well I think it's not so... rather the stoic would advise one to stop focusing on the misfortune, and instead switch one's focus to something more productive.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Well suck it up can be an advice. What if someone sits in their room and laments the death of their sister day after day? You go to them, you tell them to suck it up, and go outside to do something else. Focus on something they can do something about, which, for example, may be helping their younger sibling who is still alive. If they don't suck it up, they'll remain stuck doing nothing as you say, and it will exacerbate their suffering even more.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Well I am telling you, I am interested if you do have something valuable. But so far it seems to be you are merely saying the stoic solution is untenable, you don't explain in any clear detail why this is so, and you fail to provide an alternative which deals with the same problem that the stoic fails to deal with in a better manner.
Stop doing this, stop doing that. Ultimately it just amounts to 'that problem you have? Just don't have it anymore.'
Quoting Agustino
I think that would be an entirely understandable reaction, and it's not necessarily my place to tell them how they should react to the death of a loved one.
Well it certainly doesn't make them feel good to act that way. Neither does it help them in anyway. So how does it follow that it's not your place, as an ethicist, to tell them how to manage the situation better so that they can move on with their lives and start feeling better?
Again, you are refusing to tell me what that person should do to feel better (assuming the stoic answer isn't the right one)... You are refusing to tell me how he can make his life better.
I don't think philosophy should be in the business of giving self-help advice and maxims about how to live. It should be in the business of scrutinizing ideas and exposing errors. Bad 'ethical' positions are, if you like, errors.
I may be wrong, but in fact, I think no one else reading this thread follows. If anyone does, please clarify for me, or for anyone else who doesn't understand, what TGW means.
Yeah, but I've been asking myself that question the last couple weeks as I live my life, and it very much depends on how I feel. Sometimes I feel the emptiness and the meaninglessness of one desire after another, and sometimes I feel the fullness of life, and I look forward to the one thing after another.
This leads me to believe that all this talk really depends on how one feels about their own life, setting aside tragedy. Of course all those terrible things happen in the world, but the pessimist is arguing something more. They are saying that even if everyone were fortunate and escaped any sort of tragedy, they would still suffer from the ceaseless desiring. And yet I can't verify that for myself. It only seems to be true when I'm depressed, or highly stressed, or grumpy and irritated. It doesn't seem to be the case when I'm feeling good.
So which is it? What makes the empty feeling more real than the full feeling? What makes it wrong when I think to myself that life is worth living, for me anyway, at least for this part of it? It makes me wonder if the pessimist isn't just chronically depressed. Now that doesn't mitigate all the terrible things that do happen in the world, but just living doesn't seem to so terrible all the time. Not to me.
I can understand both points of view, but I can't understand what makes one more true than the other, except for how one feels about it. I harken back to my experience of competitive running. It was hard and painful, but whether it was worth it and enjoyable depended entirely on how I felt about it.
Well, Dickinson's three little stanzas get a better reaction out of me than Heidegger's endless rambling about Being-Toward-Death, despite being about very similar subjects. Of course, poetry isn't philosophy (or is it?).
Pain cannot be fought. At least that is my reading. The dishonesty of the stoic is in presenting a solution to pain. Nothing helps with pain. If there is pain, there is no means by which to endure it or mitigate it. It must be cut-off entirely. It must not exist.
Since people can't do anything about pain, any suggestion of a "solution" to pain is merely platitude which is ignoring how much pain hurts. So the grieving man is, indeed, making no error. His life hurts exactly as he feels. He is in pain and so nothing he does can solve the problem. A maxim he shouldn't be in pain because it is a waste of his time won't help with his pain at all. If his pain is to be solved, it must cease to exist.
The problem is in trying to distinguish between "pain" and an "attitude to pain." Pain is a feeling and so is someone attitude in a moment. One cannot take the attitude pain is not really painful. The tornado is a tragedy and no amount of insisting it is best to move on with life will change that. The "attitude to pain" is retroactive dishonesty about what happened. It lies about how bad the moment of pain was /is.
People can get to a point where a pain is no longer there or is replaced by a different one (e.g. obsession and despair over a dead loved one replaced by occasional events of sadness). This, however, is a matter of an absence of pain or a different one. No "dulling" of a pain occurred. No instance of pain has become "lesser."
[quote=Agustino]Ok TGW, so you think we can ALWAYS prevent getting hit by tornadoes and all tragedies in our life? If not, then what are we to do when we can't prevent it?[/quote]
Nothing. The question doesn't make sense. Sometimes there is pain we can do nothing about and tragedies we cannot prevent. There is no answer. Not even anti-natalism can help here because the people affected by the tragedy are already born. Sometimes there is nothing we can do to stop getting hurt.
Depends on the pain. Is it the pain of running an ultra-marathon, or is it the pain of losing a child? Is it the pain of trying to meet a deadline for a project you've poured your heart into, or the pain of not being able to follow your dreams?
Seems to me suffering is not the result of pain necessarily, but what accompanies the pain. Is it accompanied by purpose? Is the pain under your control? Do you retain a positive attitude after breaking your leg, knowing that you'll be able to walk again in a few weeks? Of course it depends on how great the pain is. Probably a lot harder to be positive under torture, or seeing people die. It's also harder to remain positive if you don't expect to walk again, or don't expect the pain to go away.
If someone tells me that life isn't worth living because we experience pain, then my response is how much? A headache doesn't make me wish I never lived. Being stretched on the rack probably would. Being disappointed at not getting something I want doesn't make life seem pointless to me, but being stuck in deep depression does.
I think the Stoic is right up to a point, but I'd change it from being indifferent to being in the right mood, or having the right attitude toward normal life, which may not be under the individual's control. Just pointing out that how a person feels about things can greatly effect how much they think life sucks. Or at least it does me. Waiting in traffic is only mildly annoying when I'm doing fine, it becomes near unbearable when I'm very tired and highly irritated.
This raises the question as to whether pain is as bad for animals as for humans. I think that for a self-reflective (linguistic) entity being-in-pain (in its worst dimension) does not consist merely in feeling an unpleasant physical sensation (however intense), but suffering the fear of what it might signify, for example of its potential for the negation of our possibilities and our life's meanings, and particularly in view of its possible permanence as a state, of its becoming our ultimate (at least potentially unto death) imprisoner and hence dis-empowerer.
These kinds of reflective dispositions associated with pain may be amenable to stoic ameliorations; and I cannot see that there would be anything "platitudinous" or even inauthentic about availing oneself of such philosophical aids. If thinking a certain way can help to change my attitude towards inevitable pain, which in turn makes it far more bearable, even though it may be to no degree merely sensationally lessened, what could be wrong with that?
Crude, but yes, that's basically it. Your alternative ultimately amounts to... what? 'That problem you have? Do nothing about it'. If you do answer, it's only fair to answer in the same manner in which you've treated stoicism, so please, no sophistication or charity, and it should consist of a short sentence.
Quoting The Great Whatever
There is a problem, hence there is an error. The problem, in the example, is excessive grieving, which is detrimental. The error would be to do nothing about it, as the problem would persist; and the solution would be to move on - gradually, and with assistance, if need be - thereby ultimately ceasing to grieve in excess.
I don't think there is just an answer to what people in general should do in the face of suffering. It's not the right question to be asking.
Quoting Sapientia
What makes the grieving 'excessive?' Seneca's answer is, because animals don't grieve that much. I'm guessing you don't have anything more insightful than that.
Suffering, to the extent that it's detrimental, should be avoided and minimised, should it not? If not, why? And if it's not the right question, then what is?
Quoting The Great Whatever
No more insightful, but just as evident: too much grieving can be detrimental. Excessive grieving can mean not just grieving more than normal, as Seneca's answer (as paraphrased by you) implies, but also grieving to an extent whereby it has a detrimental effect on that person's life and the lives of others, such as close family and friends.
Asking whether suffering should be minimized is not the same as asking what should be done in the face of it. Usually if you're suffering, it's 'too late.' In the face of suffering, I'm not sure what the question of what one 'can do' about it makes much sense. We can perhaps live through it, embody it in art, and so on, but what happens, what befalls you, for that very reason can't be avoided once it's on you. You can of course minimize future suffering, but that's not the same as doing something 'in the face of it.'
Quoting Sapientia
I don't know. Maybe the least detrimental thing is just never to grieve over anything. But even if that were so, a lot of people find such a prospect repulsive. I just think didactic instructions about how much to grieve are absurd. It shows a disconnect with reality.
It could be mitigated, but new pains would arise. Those who medically cannot feel pain do not by that token have 'good' lives in any sense.
— The Great Whatever
How so? — darthbarracuda
Indeed, they aren't the same. The former is an answer to the latter.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Sure, when you suffer, you suffer. And when you suffer, it is of course too late to prevent that suffering from having occured. That's undeniable. But [i]how much[/I] and [i]for how long[/I] - that we have some control over. That [i]can be[/I] in the face of suffering. We can act to alleviate suffering [I]whilst[/I] suffering, as opposed to just learning ways of seeking to prevent future occurrences from hindsight. One can, in at least some cases, prevent that suffering from becoming even worse than it already is - gradually, moment by moment, as well as afterwards with foresight into possible events in the more distant future. One can, at least under certain circumstances, [I]reduce[/I] it's impact.
Presumably, however, we could invent technology that could get rid of the aspect of pain that we find uncomfortable and replace it with simply a notification. Evolution did not lead to us having to ability to consciously control our pain receptors, but with the help of technology we might be able to.
I don't know how that's possible. If for example you consider boredom, loneliness, hopelessness, embarrassment, and so on pains, then you would have to rewire our bodily structure so fundamentally that our existential structures would be completely revamped, to the extent that we might not be able to even recognize them or from our present perspective even imagine them. That's a far more revisionary task than just, say, blocking some receptors. Is it even possible for a feeling creature not to suffer? And is there any interesting sense in which one is alive (that is, not biologically, but in a way that matters) without feeling?
Or, you could look at these pains like I do, and realize that they are self-caused. Boredom can be relieved and can be a motivator for action. Loneliness and embarrassment are horrible feelings but they ultimately can be relieved as well by action from the person. Striving, tanha, can be mitigated by getting rid of three different kinds of desires. It's not as if these pains spontaneously come into being and cannot be solved.
Additionally, I do not think these kinds of pains are anywhere near as bad as, say, being stabbed in the heart. They may cause a person a bit of angst, anxiety, and some depression, but don't usually give a person overwhelmingly terrible suffering. And the times that it does give a person overwhelmingly terrible suffering (such as extreme anxiety, something I have experience with), there is medication and therapy that helps tremendously.
Quoting The Great Whatever
We could make an artificial intelligence that is wired so that it never thinks about the past or the future (thus never feeling existential angst), and program it with notifications instead of crude nociceptors.
For beings that exist right now, such as you and me, well, I'm not sure. Unless an experience machine is a valid option, then some kind of existential, psychological suffering (like you said, boredom or striving) is going to arise. It is inevitable, but we can learn to deal with it in various ways that allow us to live our lives in a sufficiently pleasant way.
But this just isn't true. That would impute extraordinary powers of control over me.
Quoting darthbarracuda
In principle I don't think any one kind of pain is worse than any other, but in practice I think you're right, extreme physical pain is almost always the worst kind. But there's still the question of whether life would be 'any good' even if we were just left with the less unbearable pains that ate away at us slowly.
What I'm saying is that psychological pain (unless it is caused by a disorder or disease) is perpetuated by our choices and perspective. Regardless of your views on free will, you have to live under the illusion that you have control (the trash will not take itself out, for example). Psychological pain is a very real phenomenon, but ultimately it derives from the person, not the environment. This makes it different than physical pain caused by nociceptors, since we really don't have much control over that kind of pain, and which is caused by an external influence.
I don't see any reason to believe this. Sounds like New Age crap.
Psychological pain is not like physical pain. Physical pain is like being cut, bruised, burned, or injured in any other way that results in nociceptors firing and the individual experiencing discomfort of varying degrees.
Psychological pain, especially the pain focused on by pessimistic and existential philosophers, is certainly influenced by the environment, but ultimately is perpetuated by the person.
Obviously a physical phenomenon of pain is not, currently, under the conscious control of the individual. I cannot control whether or not I feel pain after cutting my finger. But psychological pain (that is not sourced from a syndrome such as depression), that can be helped by the individual. Boredom is not an experience that manifests itself and continues to exist as if it were a parasite. Tanha does not stick around like a cut to the finger does. These mental phenomena are perpetuated by the individual, and it is the epitome of defeatism and laziness (or a symptom of mental illness such as depression) to say a person has no control over them.
Do you care to actually argue against this, or handwave it away?
You sure, man? I mean, you've never met someone who wallows in their own bullshit to the point of hurting themselves far beyond the original stimulus? I'm not saying that this applies to all psychological pain, but some of it, surely.
If personal disposition, mental illness, environment, and other contingent factors have something to do with how people are able to cope with psychological suffering, is it really as simple as it seems to get rid of it for some people? Also, if things are different for different people, some have to work harder than others to get rid of it. Sometimes, there are slight nuanced differences in different individuals (in their brain chemistry, social history) and in the situations that are occurring (not all situations that occur to individuals are apples to apples).. that it may be impossible to discern who has more or less reason to wallow than others. Or to put it differently, it may be impossible to discern who who has more or less ability to not wallow.
But then the question just goes back: why are they constituted such as to behave that way? Surely they didn't also choose that, that was not their fault? If you dig down to what you mean by 'self-infliction' of these pains, you will find you don't know what you're talking about.
Well, yeah, if you're gonna deny free will, then there's no reason to think of anything as being self-inflicted. On the other hand, a "pull-yourself-together-you-sonofabitch" speech might cause a person to stop inflicting such pain on themselves.
(come to think of it, could free will be a useful delusion? I mean, believing that there's no free will might give me a means to rationalize away the fact that I'm wallowing, thus allowing me to wallow even more, even if I'm right)
A lot of time that is not how it works.. "Hey buddy, pull yourself up by the bootstrap and don't think about it..move on.. stop your complaining!" Ridiculous, cold, uncaring, not recognizing the actual pain being dealt with, and not recognizing the abilities for someone to overcome the situation. Instead it is more cold pragmatic logic. Now, there is a way of helping alleviate someone's suffering without being a haughty dick about it, but what you seem to be indicating just causes more of it. Ethics isn't being a Spartan or a caricature of a hardass football coach. Everyone's situation, psychological situation, and circumstances are different and highly contingent such that such an imperative would simply be ignorant excepting of one's own feeling that "one size fits all" is the way to handle psychological pain of any kind for any person.
This seems to work on problems that perhaps little children have (losing a game, not getting a toy). It would be inappropriate in almost all adult circumstances. Though, I guess anyone can conjure an anecdote where it applied.
Another thing that helps is real trouble. If you're busy being internally maudlin about someone breaking up with you two years ago, a few minutes of genuine headache can cure those ills immediately.
I'm not sure why you think I have assumptions about adults. You said,
Quoting schopenhauer1
Evidently, you have some assumptions about adults, given your reference to "adult circumstances." You were the one that brought up adulthood, not me.
Not too many situations this easy.
Quoting Pneumenon
That is not making the other trouble go away. It is just a more immediate and debilitating pain. Just because one is not immediate and bodily, doesn't make it any less of an impact. We are not robots, nor am I sure that this is where we should be heading in our aims of how we deal with suffering. Not that you are saying this, but to tie this in to Stoicism, this is one thing I find troubling with it. Stoicism's attachment to virtue over compassion as a foundation for ethics makes life one series of events after another as if life is to be lived in grey.
Pessimists, at the least recognize the tragic and instead of imploring that we live in grey (which practically speaking doesn't work and theoretically speaking has aims towards a life of emotionless virtue which one might argue is MORE a dreary picture than the tragic-recognizing pessimist), they at least use an emotional base for dealing with suffering- mainly compassion.
Quoting Pneumenon
I was going to say that I doubt this approach would work very well on children either. The point is that treating adults in this manner (or anyone really), is not really recognizing the person's problems or empathizing.
That being said, I will grant you, under various circumstances, this may work, BUT to me, it is advice that is more for the advisor than that advisee. The advisor wants to stop the complaining and doesn't want to hear it. I suspect the advisee would simply stop complaining outwardly and suffer without any outward sign of it anymore.
So, a strawman handwave to excuse your handwaving. Pardon me but do you actually have an argument here?
No, no, you got it all wrong, man. This is deep-shit philosophy; it's obviously apparent that there is a direct relationship between how profound and enlightening your philosophy is and the magnitude of your personal suffering!
That's a really weak argument to make. It's one thing to say that one's own life isn't worth living because of X,Y,Z. It's something completely different to say that therefore it isn't worth it to me. Because just maybe X,Y,Z doesn't make my life not worth living. Who is the pessimist to say otherwise? They can't determine life's value for me. That's ridiculous.
The pessimist is arguing that everyone is the same boat here living lives where they would have been better off not existing. But not everyone agrees with that. If a person finds their life worth living, then the pessimistic position simply doesn't apply to them, whether they're stoical about X,Y,Z or whatever. The point is that those problems aren't enough to make life not worth it to that individual.
Sure it can be criticized -- if the problems in fact don't get solved where they claim to be. And let's be real, Stoicism has never solved any of these problems for anyone. Anyone espousing its virtues in this very thread can reflect on that honestly and see for themselves. 'Yes, but--' no, no buts, just be honest.
It doesn't follow from:
I have the opinion that P
that
P.
If you dismiss argument, and declare whatever you happen to say at the moment to be the ultimate truth that nothing can overturn about some subject, then why are you arguing? Where is the absurdity now?
The thing is, opinions don't matter precisely because they can go whichever way despite any possible evidence to the contrary, nothing stops anyone from having any opinion at all, certainly no facts, no thought, no concern for any real problems. Yet life is a real problem, that has real issues; and so you see, life is not a matter of opinion, because it matters, while [your] opinion doesn't (as you admit, it literally makes no difference, and nothing makes a difference to it).
I can't see how you can be right for someone else here, unless you can show that their words don't match up with their psychological profile over time, or something like that. But that's not an easy task. You would have to monitor that individual on a regular basis, and somehow get accurate reports.
Maybe life isn't so bad for some. Maybe they don't feel like they suffer that much on the whole. The good outweighs the bad and all.
Then nothing. Who cares if you agree or not? That means nothing. We are doing philosophy; we care about what is true, not who agrees with it.
Quoting Marchesk
'Right for someone else?' In the way that the individual is 'right for themselves?' But then, why is there no mystery about how they can be 'right for themselves?' Or, as you seem to suggest, about how they cannot be 'wrong for themselves?' Wouldn't life be easy if your opinions carried this kind of omnipotence? Why not just opine that my life is great, and make it so? Why does anyone have problems at all?
But seriously, what's more likely: that the Stoic is wrong in their assessment of their own life (and is somehow actually suffering profoundly from these problems), or you are either misunderstanding their position or blowing these problems out of proportion?
I'm not telling you how to do anything. I'm simply informing you of something that would be true, whether I informed you of it or not: that you will continue to suffer, and that Stoicism will not help you with that problem. Stoicism does not, cannot, in fact stop you from suffering, and its impotence will be apparent in your actual suffering regardless of how hard you opine that you are not suffering.
So you think there is an objective, universal truth to be had here? That's very odd for someone who values the Cyrenaics.
Quoting The Great Whatever
I never claimed that anyone could do that. I have said that whether one finds life worth living or not is a feeling. If I consistently feel that life is worth living, then it is for me. That's my opinion on life based on how I feel about it. Or it could be more complicated than that, where it sometimes feels worth it, but sometimes not. In that case, I don't know what the truth is, if there is such a thing.
I am saying that opinions are impotent. If they were omnipotent, as you say, then I could simply have the opinion that my life was perfect, an that would make it so. Yet life has real problems. Does your opinion about whether you are suffering control whether you are Clearly not. And clearly your position that it does is bizarre.
Quoting Marchesk
And what kind of feeling is that? Is it sweet or sour? No. It is as has been stressed here, a value judgment, not a feeling. And those judgments, what are they worth? Are they going to save you, from anything?
Quoting Marchesk
Shouldn't it worry you that precisely where the issues matter most, your ability to think about them is the most facile? The solution is to invent a magical realm within your head where your opinions control reality, and everything you say or think is beyond criticism? But then, why do philosophy at all? Isn't that just a solipsistic game? It would only work for someone whose life already has no problems.
Fortunately, I never made such an argument. Yeah, life has real problems. We suffer at times. Okay. The question is, does that make life not worth living? The pessimist says yes, but other people disagree. So what makes the pessimist right? Maybe I disagree that problems and suffering necessarily make life not worth living. Who are you to say otherwise for me?
Why are you under the impression that whether you disagree with something has anything to do with whether it's true? Notice that the following is an invalid inference:
I disagree with P.
Therefore, not P.
Yet, that seems to be the pattern you are invoking. If not, then what? How does bringing up your disagreement matter in any way?
Feeling good, interested, motivated, like life has a purpose, looking forward to things, enjoying other people, etc. It could include joy, flow, intense interest, or just feeling like things are going well.
Of course they don't always go well, so then it's a question of do they go wrong enough to spoil the good feeling about life? Does it become hopeless? Burdensome? Depressing? Then it stops feeling like it's worth it.
Because you're arguing about the subjective state of other people. You're claiming that life can't be worth living to them, even though they disagree with you.
Again, what does it matter if they disagree? Notice that the above pattern of inference, which you continue to invoke, is invalid.
I maintain that there is no feeling of 'life being worth living.' That's something you can say, but not feel.
But I don't need to do that to feel like life is worth living. That stems from how I feel, which admittedly I don't always feel good about life, and I can't say for sure on the whole if it's worth it to me, but sometimes it certainly is. I would say based on observation that some people would feel that their lives were worth it overall, despite whatever rough patches they went through.
Is that like saying that there is no feeling of being in love, but just something you say?
Anyway, I do feel it and I say it to myself when I do. And sometimes I feel the opposite.
It has resolved such problems, at least temporarily, and it has helped some people to cope with them when they do arise and become problematic. You'd have to refute strong evidence to the contrary in order to refute this point, namely people's own experience. I myself, and no doubt countless others, have personally experienced such existential issues, and have personally experienced the negative affects that they can have on us, as well as having experienced these negative affects diminishing, and arising less frequently, over a period of time. The latter is attributable, in part, to conformity with Stoicism. I have applied it, and it has been successful to an extent, and continues to be so.
It's highly unlikely (and rather preposterous to claim) that all these people, myself included, are deluded in that respect, and are merely experiencing illusion. Yet, even if that were so, it'd be a placebo which successfully treats the problem nonetheless! So, you really don't have a leg to stand on.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Honesty, these sort of remarks are a waste of time and ought to be beneath you. It's charitable to assume that we, your interlocutors, have already honestly reflected the subject matter, and yet have nonetheless arrived at a different conclusion to yours. If we've done so erroneously, then it's not good enough to simply implore us to see for ourselves, because, as we see it, you're mistaken.
Disagreement is pretentious? (Sorry, I read that wrong, I meant 'preposterous'). I don't know, thinking that it's preposterous that you could be wrong is itself preposterous.
I am denying that you have experiences of Stoicism solving life's problems because as a matter of fact it doesn't, regardless of what you claim.
Does it, though? Ibuprofen works, certainly. Stoicism?
You're beating around the bush here. What specific part of Stoicism do you find does not work to solve these problems? Can you explain why Stoicism is not the answer to these problems? Can you even identify these problems to begin with? And can you identify the problems that Stoicism is even concerned with so that you make sure you aren't constructing a straw man?
If you can't answer these questions without appealing to vagueness or attacks on the personal, subjective feelings of others, kindly step off the stage.
Thanks for twisting my words. I don't think that it's preposterous that I could be wrong. Acknowledgment that I could be wrong is implicit in my statement, since I stated that it's highly unlikely, as opposed to impossible. I do, however, think that it's preposterous to claim that so many people, myself included, are deluded in that respect, given such strong evidence to the contrary.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Well, it does, as a matter of fact, in the way that I described, given all of my qualifications. I'm not sure whether or not you've taken that into account, based on the phrasing in your reply, and the general impression that you've given me. If you're looking for an absolute, perfect solution to cure us of such problems, without fault, indefinitely, then the search for a solution would be misguided from the start, as it's bound to fail. If, on the other hand, you're looking for a realistic, productive means of dealing with such problems, then Stoicism has produced good results - regardless of what you claim, as it happens.
Your denial is indeed preposterous. As preposterous as if I were to deny that you have experience of the gravity of such problems, as emphasised by Pessimism. The truth of the matter lies between the two extreme notions of, on the one hand, such problems being severe, relentless, inescapable, irresolvable; and, on the other, such problems being something that can be easily and finally solved simply with a bit of will power: 'Stop, problem, you may not do that!'.
I'm not twisting your words; you aren't considering what you're saying.
Quoting Sapientia
How many people believe something is irrelevant to its truth.
Quoting Sapientia
But Stoicism is in no way realistic -- its goal is sagelike perfection and its suggestions involve no practical action. It also produces no worthwhile results, in that reading about Stoicism or trying to practice it will not actually resolve your life's major problems.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Read the thread.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I have attacked no one's feelings; I have attacked publicly espoused positions.
Positions that nobody is forcing you to accept. If Stoicism does not work for you, then it does not work for you. Discussing why this is is perfectly fine, but beating everyone over the head repeatedly with the same vague denying drivel is not argument.
I never said anyone was forcing me to accept them. I was just pointing out that they're wrong.
Is it not merely suggesting that its practise is worthwhile?
Seems to me the Stoic is trying to create future states (the practice of Stoicism) which are present instead of various states of pain. Whether you are counting this as a resolution of pain or merely distraction from it, I don't think it matters. Either way, any underlying problems remain (e.g. death, work, suffering). Stoicism isn't about solving any problems at all.
But then I don't think that matters to the Stoic. There goal is to do something worthwhile, do something which makes them feel good, do something which resolves/distracts from the pain for a moment or three. They aren't really interested in Stoicism solving their problems.
You are twisting my words; you aren't considering what I'm saying.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Yes, and that reply is itself irrelevant, since my point was about the likelihood of a given number of people being deluded in a certain respect, and in light of strong evidence to the contrary, which isn't equivalent to your straw man: "because a given number of people believe/disbelieve something, it is therefore true/false (or even likely true/false)".
Quoting The Great Whatever
Yes, that's an ideal, as I see it, and is not essential to my more moderate, stoic-like position; but working towards it, even if unachievable, can, has, and does, in at least some cases, produce real results. So, in that sense, it is a realistic (and worthwhile) means of dealing with such problems as have been mentioned.
Now, what major problems do you claim that it won't resolve? Because the Stoic-like mind-set and method of dealing with problems has certainly helped at times. It has helped me at least, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard. I'd say that stress, for example, is one of life's major problems, and I can give countless examples in which the stoic-like response has helped me to reduce or avoid the detrimental consequences of stressful situations.
Here's some examples taken from the previous pages that I feel exemplify how I feel you have been treating this thread:
Quoting The Great Whatever
...with nothing else to say.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Which is like the greatest non-answer. Dismissive handwaving.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Like I said previously, dismissive handwaving.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Like I said previously, a dismissive handwave to excuse a dismissive handwave.
Quoting The Great Whatever
wtf does this even mean. Non-answer. Once again, you are asserting without explaining that Stoicism has never solved these problems.
Quoting The Great Whatever
It's this kind of pretentious bullshit that gets spread around the internet simply because of anonymity. Do you really act like this in real life? Sorry, mate, but honestly do you expect people to respect you when you are implying that their position is outrageously silly, especially when it concerns the evaluation of the value of someone else's own life?!
This thread started out alright. It went to shit pretty quickly.
Quoting Sapientia
???
Quoting Sapientia
Ah, but this is okay, because you are not a Stoic. You are Stoic-like.
Isn't it better to be right than respected?
To which I would reply that you are currently neither.
What issues do you have with Stoicism that make it a problematic philosophy to follow? I don't want to see your replies to other people to try to understand what your issue is with it. I need to know what your position is exactly so I know what I am arguing against.
Spot on. I thought this was going to be an insightful and inquisitive comparison between pessimism and stoicism (my first post set out to be, anyway), a topic that could have been extremely interesting - but it it quickly turned into people defending their psycho-philosophical dispositions, as per usual.
What blows my mind is how little some people understand stoicism but still think it's fine to talk about it regardless, which is of course absolutely fine, except that they then at the same time think adamantly that what they're saying is factually correct as well. What is one of the most successful philosophies in western history is being reduced to a comical caricature - it's extremely cynical and disingenuous.
One way you can tell a mature philosopher from the rest is by how respectful they are to their opponents position, by the lengths they go to to honestly present it in it's strongest and most reasonable form before they go about deconstructing it. Beating straw men isn't hard. Why anyone would think they've defeated their opponent when they've intentionally crippled them is beyond me. Without this intellectual virtue, you're not doing (good) philosophy - you're just arguing on the internet.
As for stoicism simply "not working", some of it's most important psychological insights have been used in the basis of modern approaches to psychotherapy, with positive empirical effect. The gall of claiming that you know better than rational and intelligent people regarding their experiences than they themselves do is beyond uncharitable. But no, they're just mistaken about, for example, the therapeutic affect felt after reminding themselves, when stuck in traffic and late for work, of the stoic concept of letting go of the things they cannot control. You are the one in the privileged position, sitting on the other side of the internet with your a priori arguments, of telling other people you do not know what is and is not working for them. It's really up to you what is and is not bad for other people, it doesn't matter what value judgement each individual places on the things that happen to them. You know better; you're objective - not them.
I don't usually engage in rhetoric, but it felt fit for purpose here. Stoicism can work if you make it work.
That's what I said.. which is pretty much what you said here.
I also said Quoting schopenhauer1
The point of the thread is: does stoicism solve the problems that pessimism offers?
Julian Young wrote about Schopenhauer
[quote=Julian Young in his book "Schopenhauer"]
It may be remembered that one of Schopenhauer's sharp-eyed criticisms of Stocism is that in teaching mere detachment from, rather than abandonment of, desire it forgets that things to which we become accustomed usually become a necessity. For this reason, he preferred the genuine poverty preached by the Stoics' predecessors, the Cynics, and regards Stoicism as a bourgeois debasement of Cynicism (WR II: 155-6; see pp 35-6 above).
JY's quote regarding Schopenhauer is interesting. But, I don't really think it's all that "sharp-eyed", to be honest. The things we become accustomed to don't, in fact, become a necessity. You'll soon realise the difference between a Necessity and a 'necessity', when you are forced to go without each of them. There are plenty of things in life we don't think we can go without, until we have to, and we realise they weren't all that important to begin with. There's been periods when I've gone without things I desire - alcohol, a hot meal, sex, friends, books, a comfortable bed, my full 8 hours a night, time to myself. At first it's challenging, but after a while you stop wanting them, and you adjust. It's like giving up smoking - eventually you don't want the nicotine. We've both employed the phenomena of hedonic adaptation against optimists, it's only fair we accept that it works against Schopenhauers argument here. That we become accustomed to something does not thereby make it a necessity, in the same sense as actual necessities. I don't doubt that this is even something a lot of non-philosopher types have come to notice through experience. We often get deprived of things we want and just get used to not having them to the point we don't want them anymore, therefore they are not 'necessities'.
Quoting Chekhov
Of course, it's arrogant to claim a position is wrong, but not to claim that it's right (which is, in effect, to claim that another one is wrong). 'Intelligent' people believe whatever you please: it's beneath a philosopher to appeal to authority and/or popularity. I think everyone upset in this thread knows that, but on the other hand has literally no better defense.
What a load of rubbish. tgw, it's not arrogant to claim a position is wrong, nor is it arrogant to claim is position is right (stop martyring yourself). This is a philosophy forum for Pete's sake. It's only arrogant, no, silly, to claim a position is wrong without any real arguments.
Quoting The Great Whatever
So is martyrdom.
Except that it is impossible to argue with you. You do not make any claims which can be falsified by reasonable argument, you merely claim some things as facts, you never explain why they are facts to everyone else. You claim it's a fact that stoicism cannot decrease one's suffering. What's there to argue with that? You have retreated in an unassailable fortress, but you cannot touch any of us, simply because you do not have any arguments; you have no troops to allow you to move out of your fortress. You merely make claims that certain things are facts. I tell you that stoicism does help people (which is a reasonable explanation of the fact that millions claim to have been helped by stoicism), to which you respond that they are deluding themselves. Well how the fuck do you know? And who has more evidence? You have absolutely 0 evidence for your position, except a theoretical construct. There is no empirical evidence of what you say being true. And there is tons upon tons of evidence for stoicism being true: cognitive behaviour therapy, rational emotive behavior therapy, etc. Really TGW, if you claim stoicism is useless, you have no fucking clue what planet you're living on. It's not even worth arguing with you. There's nothing to argue in that. All that I can say is what Avicenna said: "Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned". There is insurmountable evidence for the claim that people have at least been helped (even if not completely saved). How can I argue with you, if you do not even admit this basic fact? It's like we are five people and we all look out the window, and we say there's a tree there, and you look and say "I'm looking, there actually is no tree there. You guys need to look harder". The only thing we can do is hit you over the head and tell you to stop fucking around.
And when I brought up the likelihood of those millions of people being deluded in that respect, given evidence to the contrary, he mistakenly took that to be the fallacy of appealing to the masses. Of course, masses of people [i]have[/I] turned out to be deluded in various respects throughout history, but we can still make a reasonable assessment given various factors: the content of the belief, the number of people that beleive it and the basis for their belief, the available evidence... If, out of millions, only a single person P believes X because of Y, it's possible that P is a genius and that the rest are mistaken, but clearly Y is compelling evidence, and lacking proof, this ought to be taken into consideration.
Needless to say, I don't think we have encountered a Copernican revolution in this discussion.
This point is relevant because it's about justification. Even if those millions of people [I]are[/I] deluded, unless this can be demonstrated (which it hasn't been in this discussion), it's reasonable to look at what the evidence suggests, and it suggests otherwise.
In this specific case, an appeal to the masses is actually a logical argument, because if Stoicism didn't work, nobody would have followed it. It's why using the same appeal for a suicide cult doesn't work at all...since they're all dead.
And Stoicism wasn't a religion, either, so it's not like they were deluded or anything. It was exactly meant for dealing with suffering, and people decided to go with it if it worked for them.
My problem with stoicism I guess, isn't necessarily whether it helps people (whether by delusion, habituation, or otherwise), but that pain is elusive in ways that stoicism doesn't necessarily solve.
If we look at a phenomenology of pain, we see that it can go from things such as mild episodes of annoyance to extreme torture. (Let's avoid the extreme torture for now, because most don't get to that level.) But, you stated that a thing's necessity can be given up easily. I don't think that is necessarily true. For example, If someone values human communication, a cell phone is a powerful tool. Further, If that person is naturally an extrovert (which I believe to be the case with many people), losing a cell phone is painful (especially if they are habituated to using one- a silly rich man's toy in the 80s and 90). it simply has become a vital communication device for them (as with many others). I've seen the sheer terror of the thought of losing the cell phone for some people and it can be comically overblown. The reaction could have been one of being calm, cool, and collected (stoic-like) and say to themselves, "it is just a phone, I will get another one.. who needs cell phones anyways.. hey I could be dying on my deathbed or living in poverty..". But it just doesn't seem like most people, even in cognitive behavioral therapy, would be inclined to have this reaction to such a thing. At best, a person might lose it so they can write a sentimental New York Times piece about how they went without a cell phone for a week or month or year.. but even that was a novelty done by an author for rhetorical purposes.
Now you may scoff at me, and I'm sure about three our four people in this thread might do so and pile on the scorn that I didn't use examples of "real" pain.. but that is why I used the cell phone example. It is very much in the world of billions of people, and it very much happens all the time. No "comparisons" to starving third-world persons in Africa are going to negate the immediate phenomenology of the cell phone example. Yes, time will eventually abate the sense of loss of connection, as one looks at it with more equanimity, but that doesn't take any stoic grand value.. First one is pained by the loss and over time it gets less as the loss settles in. What really will happen is a series of annoying events that follows.. switching phones, paying for a new one, regretting one didn't get insurance if they didn't for the phone in the first place, making decisions about cell phone plans, etc. Of course, if you really wanted to be a cynic you can say, "oh those aren't "real" problems" but the annoyances will be there nonetheless." And even more, you can go further and say, "You shouldn't rely on the cell phone in the first place.. why not just go without it" which then cuts off this person's source of communication that almost everyone in his surrounding has access to.
Now, we can imagine the person cut of from cell service, and internet, and tv (like many homeless and third-worlders are used to), but then this seems to not really be something that billions of people (or millions of people) for that matter would rather do. Of course, Schopenhauer would say that is exactly the kind of thing that needs to happen (go without any desires for worldly things-even food if necessary to abate the will), but I never said his path would be more accessible (he never followed it himself!).
All this comes down to the idea that the phenomenology of certain pains- even minor annoyances are just not EASILY amenable to stoicism and some are possibly. Perhaps a personality disorder, anxiety disorder, depression, etc. things that are long-term and ingrained habitual thinking can be decreased (whether by self-delusion, habituation, or otherwise), but oddly enough, on many "pains" great and small, I honestly don't think "stoicism" really works.
And another point I would like to make is that we are all here from romantic desire, lust, or at the least a desire for preference of kids which in itself embodies the "craving" Schopenhauer said was inevitable. These sort of things (love, lust, relationships) are what literally make the world go round, and does cause much harm. However, it cannot be avoided- it is in our nature to be social and social pain will thus ensue. We are not robots, no matter how much the aim of the stoic sage would be that we are so. By nature, indifference is impossible as that is not the normal course of our species if it needs to survive. Survival, at its root has desires that is entailed with it to ensure the continuation of the species. These desires themselves, at their root are a cause of great pain. Whether in hindsight, one has mental techniques, visualizations, and ideologies that try to mitigate the pain, does not make the fact that it is there in the first place go away. It is continual and ceaseless.
This also goes into another thing of temperament, predispositions, and environments. Though I do believe we have many necessary pains entailed within being a social animal, there is contingent factors in people's life-courses that might make them more or less amenable to pain of various sorts. Not all "treatments" for pain are going to work the same on everyone and what might work for one might not work on another person. It depends on the nature of the pain, the person's constitution, environment, etc. To say that someone can simply logic their way out of pain, is probably not going to happen for many people. For some, this may be the "magic bullet" for their woes, for others, it is as healing as a band aid to a gunshot wound.
I have said my piece on stoicism and its effectiveness or ineffectiveness in relation to suffering and pain.
Schop, I'm not sure if Stoicism ever claimed to be able to solve these problems. This might be an issue of individuals claiming they've found loopholes. As far as I'm aware, Stoicism is about nurturing the virtuous life, not necessarily mitigating suffering. It just happens that it does it fairly well for many people.
Stoicism isn't going to stop a branch from falling and breaking your leg, for example. But it can help with how you deal with the situation, and oftentimes how you deal with a situation directly influences how much you actually suffer (runaway emotions like despair).
Quoting schopenhauer1
Losing your phone is a good example of pain. Pain caused by loss. Buddhism happens to also have a lot to say on this (attachments).
Quoting schopenhauer1
Personally, I'm under the impression that life itself is usually a big annoyance. That's the whole point of philosophies like Stoicism and Buddhism and the like.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is the biggest turn-off for me for Schopenhauer. I respect his philosophy and agree with many of the things he wrote, but man was he a dick and antithetical to the "compassionate ascetic" he championed. It made me look for more inspiring and "role model" philosophers like Camus and the Buddha.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm still kind of having a hard time understanding "why" exactly you don't think Stoicism works.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I agree with you here. No need to reproduce.
Quoting schopenhauer1
These are always in change. Don't trick yourself into thinking that your temperament (whatever that may be) will always be that way or has to be that way.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think you pretty much just summed up the entire thread, then. /thread?
The point of the thread is whether stoicism is effective in doing so and many people claimed that it does. I have problems with the idea of "nurturing the virtuous life" as well, and explained it earlier in talking about virtue over compassion.
Quoting darthbarracuda
But if you read my post again, you see that I am claiming that, even in these small annoyances, it really doesn't "work". The pain is still there and people by and large don't use stoicism to handle the situations. As stated in last thread, stoicism, as far as dealing with long-term things (death, anxiety) may be helpful and more or less effective depending on individuals, but the point of the cell phone, is to show that its impotence can be seen in as small an annoyance as that.
You also point out life itself being an annoyance. This is much of the pessimist's point. The fact that we have to try to use things like stoicism to deal with it, is itself something to consider.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Actually, one can argue that despite being a dick himself, the fact that he wrote about compassion and asceticism is quite interesting. I think he was well-aware that he was not either compassionate or ascetic, but that this was ultimately sources of undercutting the Will. Just as stoicism, the way to get to a denial of will, is not meant to be easy. The Will doesn't frankly give a shit, and the way out is simply how well we can persevere against its demands.
It seems to me that you are trying to judge stoicism by the criteria that whatever is painful is bad, and whatever is pleasurable is good. But stoicism doesn't operate by this criteria. Its practitioners do not try to avoid what is painful. Many times they actually go towards the painful as opposed to the pleasurable. Instead, stoicism guides itself by the criteria of what is virtuous. For a stoic, peace of mind is attained by the pursuit of virtue, which is the only thing which is under one's control. As such, a stoic "prides" him/herself over their character, as opposed to their outward circumstances, which they recognise to be contingent.
For the stoic, suffering is not equivalent with pain. Instead, suffering is the absence of virtue, which manifests itself in multiple forms. In the example with losing the phone that you gave, it manifests itself as self-blame, continued, out of control thinking about the phone, what if scenarios, etc. However, stoic practice leads one to the elimination of suffering. The stoic sage, much like a sports champion, is not hurt by obstacles, but rather profited. When an obstacle comes their way, they are happy, because there's yet another chance to overcome an obstacle. They are indifferent to pain; they do not care if it's painful or not to overcome the obstacle. The joy of the stoic lies in their character - in being able to pursue overcoming the obstacle that lies in their path - in their degree of self-control. As Epictetus said, death (or defeat) may be unavoidable, but it's certainly avoidable not to go out crying and begging like a slave, but instead keep your head up like an emperor.
As such, your claim that Stoicism doesn't prevent pain is besides the point. It never sought to. It sought to transform your experience of pain into something positive.
I just don't think people will think like that. People will not be happy with the inconvenience or annoyance. And as your statements suggest, much of stoicism seems to be about outward appearances. If you look calm, you at least seem unphased, and are given more respect. In a citizen-army society, this attitude of looking the part makes sense, especially if you may expect to be a warrior and face death. I just don't think people are naturally inclined to think that overcoming obstacles is great or desirable- it is simply something one does after the fact because one is forced into it.
Also, if suffering is a lack of virtue, why is this so? There seems to be something more underlying that which is to say, another definition of suffering for which it is supposed to be diminishing. It seems to me virtue has a problem of assuming that people lock into some sort of virtue-robotic mode once they have "cultivated" enough of it to be a Great Man. I haven't seen any supermen lately- just usual humans doing things that they like doing because it feels good, they like doing it, or some sort of emotional impulse drives them to it (boredom, curiosity, compassion, etc.).
I think it's more about being in a better state than one is currently in right now. Stoicism may not make you Captain Optimism, but it might just make you a bit less grim.
If it works, fine. I just don't think it really solves anything except not complaining too much.
It also seems quite convenient that these so-called "virtues" are EXACTLY what society needs to keep going. Funny, how the inbuilt logic of it sustains the system as it is, and just "deal with it". Pessimists, look at the system (life that is) and rebel altogether.
Evidently not everyone does. But at least some people do.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well only looking calm isn't something commendable according to the Stoics. You'd have to actually be calm, something that only you can see within yourself.
You are probably right about most people. So what? Does it follow that people should do only what they are naturally inclined to do? Stoicism isn't meant to be easy. It's very very difficult, but then, everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.
But that is where the pessimist would have hesitation with life's premise. Overcome shit, or live a less than "good" life. Not that I believe that slogan, but apparently some stoics do.
Which actually does quite a bit, to be honest. To complain to the actualize your discomfort and spread it to others like a plague.
Then you better not keep writing about pessimism and go to other topics. I'm fine with it though :). Also, darth, though you are trying to make a larger point.. This kind of shit is what makes me think you troll for these kind of all out ad hominems. I think TGW was dragged into it, and I can see how you are trying to do it with me. Style matters here too in these kind of dialogues if you don't want it to crash like has been doing.
It's very strange because it is certainly not possible to have any alternative in non-existence. The fact of existence forces you to cope with it. If you don't, you will suffer, and then you will cease to exist. If you do, and do so well, then you will profit temporarily while alive. Are you mad that you are forced to make this choice? Well not being forced simply isn't in the cards. Why be upset about it? Birth may be an insult, but take it gracefully and make the best of it
If birth is an insult, I think that should be pursued further. Communities of understanding of our situation would look at the realities and not replace it with ideals of virtue cultivating which is simply circular logic in that we pursue virtue to pursue virtue. That is almost as bad as the hedonic treadmill for hedonism.
I disagree. It is not whatever system because whoever for example is saddened and affected by events/circumstances outside of their control is doing something that is absolutely irrational. Why? Because there is no reason to be sad, as it changes nothing. So clearly there are better and worse ways to cope with the facts of existence, which may be the one's of the pessimist.
No they are just willing to state what they see.
What is the motivation to "do something"? The assumption is....
Yeah so you can say "it would be better never to be born" and then adopt a stoic attitude. I see nothing inconceivable about that. It would be better never to be born. But that is impossible. Hence next best thing is to be a stoic...
Having the energy. :)
Presumably this would be because one desires an outcome that would only happen if one does something. These desires are more important than the potential suffering that may come about with it.
Fact is, desires, in and of themselves, do not care about the suffering involved. Say I love and desire a woman: I do not care about the suffering involved in conquering her heart. Only in light of other considerations (other desires) do I care about the suffering involved. The Stoic therapy of desires involves both a limitation of desire so that no desire is pursued at the detriment of others (and no morally wrong desires exist), and a way of pursuing desire realistically, relentlessly and with confidence.
I think it's the opposite.
The motivation is really nothing at all. Motivation cannot be separated form doing the action. It doesn't take any from between thinking banquet an action and performing it. There can't be no pre-existing reason to take any action. You are either doing and motivated or you are not. When someone is motivated, there is no reason to do anything, nothing to be obtained, for one is already where they want to be in that moment. Instead of any sort of assumption or plan of a worthwhile end, there is just a person acting.
I never said that. I was mocking the post that I quoted, which you would know if you read the thread instead of jumping on things to quote and then respond to.
Quoting Agustino
Here's an exercise for you: look for one claim in the wall of text you posted that can be falsified by reasonable argument, or even one that says anything other than 'I'm right, you're wrong.' I'll wait.
Which "wall of text"?
As such, while I can easily imagine an athletic champion being a stoic, I can barely imagine him being a buddhist. Of course there are exceptions (thinking of the Japanese samurais here, or chinese martial artists). But it seems to me that Buddhism does require the pursuit of enlightenment (transcending this world) as opposed to flourishing within the world. What do you think @darthbarracuda?
The quote above is another example of the way in which you've persistently framed these two positions in a misleading way, as if certain features are mutually exclusive, when they aren't, and as if an adherent of one position does not - or cannot - acknowledge and accept features of the other, when they can and do.
And this talk in terms of -isms can be counterproductive, as if we must rigidly conform to a preexisting set of propositions under a certain label, rather than finding our own way, and perhaps reaching a middle ground.
Seems like it would be an interesting idea to compare the two philosophies. But I dislike these MMA championship-like smackdowns of other philosophies, the "my philosophy's better than yours'". It's not very productive.
But yes, Stoicism and Buddhism are very similar, I would even say they might be compatible in some areas. But Stoics traditionally argued for a teleology of the universe, and that rationality led to flourishing. While Buddhists (philosophically) don't argue for any teleological things (they leave that alone), and think that more emotional thinking is the path to contentedness (that's not to say Buddhists can't do philosophy, they just don't think reason will inherently lead to happiness).
I'm nine months late so I'll just leave my notes here to organize my thoughts. Most are critiques of Stoicism -- these are heavily biased against stoicism (relative to pessimism) and reflects my current inclinations on this topic that I all gathered from reading this thread.
1. Stoicism fails to provide a solution to the prevention of future suffering.
Sure, stoicism works for some but only in the context of suffering-management and not suffering-prevention. It can work in the context of overcoming ongoing suffering but provides limited to no answer to prevent future suffering from occurring in the first place. "Future" in this context means (a) suffering of existing people and (b) suffering of the next generation of (currently non-existent) people.
Both Stoicism and Pessimism recognize the inevitability of suffering of existing beings. Stoicism's answer to (a) is to endure/overcome suffering when it comes. Pessimism's answer is similar but attempts to also minimize suffering via asceticism or repression of one's desires.
Stoicism doesn't answer (b), at least that's what I get from this thread. Pessimism's proposed answer to (b) is the anti-natalist stand.
2. Stoicism fails to establish a convincing rationale for how to behave/live.
Stoicism takes the stoic values as inherently good or desirable. One's actions take into account these values.
Pessimism views suffering as inherently bad or undesirable. One's actions take into account the (reduction of) suffering of others.
There is a comment in the "Is Stoicism fatalistic" thread that stoicism "needs to be animated by compassion" and "it's hard to see what the source of that compassion is in the traditional stoic accounts".
3. Stoicism downplays the gravity of the problem of human suffering.
There is one post reading along the lines of "if it works, then what's wrong with believing/practicing it"? If it works, then good for you but it is also good to point out that it works with a caveat. And I think that the caveat is downplaying the severity of the problem of human suffering.
While stoicism acknowledges that suffering is part of human life, it viewed as just something to be overcome or maybe even ignored, e.g. "just move on" from death of a loved one, physical pain, angst, dread, boredom, etc. and "don't bother" with these problems because these are natural phenomena and "out of one's control". It is placed on the sidelines, which is useful in coping/dealing with suffering, but in doing so, fails to see suffering for what it is -- something undesirable. It also blinds one to potential solutions to prevent future suffering simply because it is out of one's control.
Pessimism acknowledges the gravity of the problem of human suffering, sees it as something undesirable, and proposes ways to minimize suffering for existent people and prevent suffering of currently non-existent people.
NOTE: I might update this post later after I re-read the thread.
That Stoics deny suffering and/or problems in general, seems to be a common misconception. From what I can tell, Stoics acknowledge there is a problem, and then look for a rational solution. Sometimes the solution is to reframe the problem in terms of "what judgments am I making?" But, sometimes the solution is to realize that there is a problem and that we can do something about it. The Stoics have been accused of being fatalistic. I guess I just don't see it.
Marcus Aurelius didn't say "well, the Germanic tribes are attacking... I guess it's meant to be."
How about, all of mankind are brothers, and it is to our advantage to work together and to look out for each other?
I quoted the specific clause you quoted from @Wayfarer in the "Is Stoicism fatalistic?" thread. Maybe we can invite them to elaborate. :-)
For instance. What in fact, do the Stoics believe about emotions? I don't know that they had any issues with emotions, as we generally think of them. They have an issue with the passions
Stoicism and Emotion.
I should also add that the name of divine Reason was also frequently referred to as the Logos.
I think this entails a somewhat religious concept of reason. It's not 'religious' in the theistic sense, but closer to the sense of Buddhism or Taoism - 'harmony with nature', 'harmony with the great way'. It's also religious in the sense of abduring the 'lower' - that being the domain of sense-impressions, sensations and passions - in favour of the 'higher' - that being governed by reason.
But unlike today's conception of 'reason', theirs was not tied to the sensory domain ('empiricism'). I rather like this passage in the New Advent encyclopedia:
I think the biggest problem with stoicism is the absence of an exemplar, the legendary sage or teacher who embodies the philosophy in the way the (apocryphal?) Lao Tzu embodied the Tao. As well as that, I think the sense of relatedness to the 'governing principle' was somewhat bloodless.
The Stoics may not have had the name of a sage in mind (some suggest that perhaps Socrates or Diogenes were examples), but they did know what qualities a sage required.
The article on Stoicism in the Stanford Encyclopedia gives rough idea of what an ideal Stoic sage would be like.
As I understand, the issue is not with the misconception that stoics practice the suppression of emotions.
The issue is where they derive motivation for the actions they do in everyday life. As I see it, in traditional stoicism, stoic actions are motivated by the pursuit of virtues/reason -- virtue/reason which is taken as good in themselves so no further justification needed. This idea that something is a good in itself does not sit well with me. For me, there should be purpose why this good ought to be pursued and this lack of narrative of purpose is what is being critiqued.
The following idea sits better with me: Life has suffering, suffering is undesirable and inherently bad, and we have to sympathize with another with their suffering. For me, it is easier to accept something as inherently bad versus accepting something as inherently good. Discussing purpose is not critical in the former while I think it is critical for the latter.
Quoting anonymous66
This sounds nice but what is the Stoic motivation behind this? Is it because brotherhood as a virtue is simply inherently good in itself?
-----
I know that it's unrealistic to ask to not take this personally given that something at your core is critiqued, but please don't as much as you can.
Although I was interested in the above comment about the connection of stoicism and Hermes, which, I presume, was retained in the hermetic tradition. I have acquired a few books on the hermetics recently and they're very interesting in their own right.
It is a historical fact that it did die out, and that Christianity became popular. Is anyone in a position to say they know for a fact why that happened? The term "underdetermination" comes to mind.
I don't share your conviction. I think we just disagree about what is good in and of itself.
And for what it's worth, I don't think you're being 'pushy' at all, you're just expressing your enthusiasm for the subject. But there's no reason not to consider objections also, it is quite a good discipline in its own right. After all a stoic ought not to be too moved by criticism ;)
I don't doubt that people have opinions about what caused its decline.
Quoting Wayfarer
You don't have to look very hard to find people critical of Stoicism.
Of course, there are responses, as well.
I wasn't aware that there were others besides myself who have an interest in Stoicism.
The Stoics believed that the world was created by a Benevolent Creator and that it is possible to see life as a festival. So, the short answer is "no" they weren't pessimists.
Quoting anonymous66
One of the reasons for the thread was that Stoicism could be used to deny that we have to "deal" with suffering in the first place by being born at all. Stoicism seemed to be a sort of stock answer, like a salve that could be used to justify the fact that we suffer. "Look, we can all act as Stoics, and the problems of life are solved". Maybe it is not put in such Pollyanna terms, but that was/is basically the gist. My point was to to point out that there are problems which Stoicism does not solve as well as the fact that suffering, by existing in the first place, bypasses the "Stoicism" as answer-to-suffering response.
I think it could be argued that Stoicism, like all the ancient philosophies, was developed as a response to an obvious issue. Life can be difficult. Philosophies are therapeutic. Stoicism is one proposed solution to the reality of human suffering (it does promise to be a path to Eudaimonia).
If not difficulties, then not philosophy (as a solution.)
There's no denying that Stoic principles help some people in dealing with life's difficulties.
The issue being raised is on the scope of the solution proposed. See Critique #1 in this post.
Quoting OglopTo
The proposed Stoic solution is limited to managing present suffering, after the fact that we are already alive and is bound to suffer some time in the future. Suffering is taken as a fact of life, deemed out of one's control, and dealt with after the fact, i.e. once you're already suffering.
It's not that suffering-management is bad but Stoicism's response ends here. It stops short of proposing ways to prevent suffering to occur in the first place.
Is Eudaimonia compatible with suffering? I don't know that I agree that suffering is out of one's control.
Every heard of negative visualization?
Here is more...
How does the concept of Eudaimonia relate to the prevention of suffering in the future for (a) existing people and (b) the next generation of (currently non-existent) people.
Is that the message you mean to convey?
But before one achieves eudaimonia, one experienced suffering. The question is, does Stoicism provide a solution to prevent the experiencing of suffering in the first place?
Is this the one you are referring to?
No, this is not the object of inquiry. I am not doubting whether the Stoic way can lead to Eudaimonia or not.
The object of inquiry goes something like this:
Before you achieve eudaimonia, you suffered in one way or another. Does Stoicism provide a solution to prevent the experiencing of suffering in the first place?
It's kind of a loaded question, isn't it? I mean... does anyone think that suffering can be totally gotten rid of?
Perhaps the "right" answer is that the Stoic sage would not suffer. Edit: If everyone were to become a Stoic sage, then there would be no suffering. Stoicism does suggest that we all attempt to become sages.
I get the strong sense that you don't quite get that all ancient philosophies promise Eudaimonia and that Eudaimonia is not compatible with suffering. Are you being deliberately obtuse? (I think it's a fair question, all things considered).
I'd like to have a decent conversation with you, but you're going to have to give me something. What are you proposing is the nature of suffering? Are you proposing an alternate solution, or are you just content with letting everyone know that there are those who don't think that Stoicism actually is the solution to the problem of suffering, hence the point of this thread?
May be true, but before being a sage, I find it hard to imagine a life devoid of suffering. The question is, is there a Stoic proposal at all to prevent this suffering from occurring in the first place?
Quoting anonymous66
Hmm. I mean it in the general sense of the word. There is the physical suffering brought about by bodily pain. There is mental suffering in terms of stress and anxiety. And there is also the more burdensome suffering brought about by angst, dread, and existential boredom.
You can argue that suffering is only a mental construct and hence can be eliminated by a strong mental will. You can also interpret it this way but I don't think the other items I enumerated above cannot be eliminated by sheer mental will -- will/meditate all one might but he cannot will away bodily pains, stress, and boredom.
Quoting anonymous66
Yes, I get from this thread that pessimism does propose a solution to prevent suffering from happening in the first place. I'm copying Critique #1 again for the proposed Pessimist solutions I got from this thread:
Quoting OglopTo
Okay. I hear you saying that you believe that Stoicism doesn't answer the problem of suffering, so you're proposing that Philosophical Pessimism is a competing philosophy, while admitting it doesn't solve the problem of suffering.
Is that a valid summation?
Sort of, if you want to view this as a competition. ;)
Unfortunately, suffering can only be managed or minimized for the living. If one is alive, one is sure to experience pains, stress, and boredom. And I guess both stoicism and pessimism offer solutions to manage/minimize these.
However, the critique is that Stoicism doesn't concern itself with the prevention of suffering of the next generation of (currently non-existent) people. On the other hand, as I infer from this thread, pessimism takes the anti-natalist stand to prevent additional human beings to be born and experience suffering in the first place.
It's suggested that Stoicism can't stop suffering.
It's also admitted that Pessimism can't stop suffering. But, the premise is that Pessimism is better because less humans will be around to suffer.
I do see a valid question. Can Stoicism make things better for future generations? That's worth debating. I personally think it's important to consider the well-being of future generations, but I don't agree with the premise that less humans=a better world.
Edit;
If you accept that a Stoic sage would not suffer, and that Stoicism is suggesting that we all make as our goal, to become a sage. Then, if at some point in the future, all become Stoic sages, then there would be no suffering.
Assuming we agree that the Stoic sage doesn't suffer and that the point of Stoicism is to make all humans into Stoic sages.
The problem is, I don't see Stoics going and and trying to convert anyone. Perhaps the next best world would be one in which there are many Stoic sages, and they would be living in harmony with everyone else, who have found their own path to Eudaimonia. This seems like a possibility, because there is no agreement on how to reach Eudaimonia (or even if that is a good goal).
I can also conceive of a future in which everyone eventually becomes a Stoic sage, just because everyone is attracted to the Stoic way of living one's life.
But that's just me.
I guess any group can believe this, right? Christianity, Epicureanism, Buddhism, etc. If everyone just becomes the exemplary of whatever belief-system we would all be in harmony and on the path to X-blissful/exalted stated. The problem is that a) some things cannot be solved with these philosophies and b) there is still suffering in the meantime until everyone becomes the wise Sage. c) Some people are naturally more resistant to being "Sages" than others due to a variety of factors. d) The FACT that there is suffering to overcome is not addressed. The Pessimist is similar to the Stoic, in many ways except that, in my opinion, the Pessimist does not evaluate the suffering as simply something to overcome (which it may or may not be depending on what kind of suffering, the personality dealing with suffering, and many other non-linear factors), but they are rebellious against the situation in the first place. No life is not a paradise, there is no excuse for it otherwise. Accepting this is de facto anyone who does not commit suicide. Trying to live your life so that it does not affect you, in fact makes it affect you quite greatly in your efforts to ameliorate it in the first place. You can never escape it. The Pessimist knows and deals with this fact face on without resorting to suppressing it. Rather accepting it means that one cannot avoid it. It is ok to resent it, bitch at it, commiserate about it. That is part of the rebellion. Seeking to work with it is being complicit.
What I hear people saying in this thread is that there is a problem. The problem is that there is a lot of suffering in the world. And it's suggested that Stoicism does or can do nothing about future suffering. The solution? Promote a lifestyle such that it will result in less humans in the future. Less humans = less suffering.. Or so the proposal goes.
It's like you're not even trying to sell a good solution. Just one that is supposedly less bad than you believe Stoicism to be.
I believe I did cover it very well. All of philosophy exists as a therapeutic solution to suffering.
That was not meant for you but for Stoicism :).
Quoting anonymous66
I don't see how this addresses the point of the FACT of human suffering.
It's comparing Stoicism to Philosophical Pessimism and making the claim that Philosophical Pessimism is better because if Pessimism hand in hand with anti-natalism, then less humans to suffer in the future.
And you're saying that no philosophy ever has addressed the fact of human suffering? or just that Stoicism hasn't addressed the fact of human suffering?
Or are you claiming that only Philosophical Pessimism addresses the fact of human suffering?
This thread was started to be originally an open forum regarding the major questions on the OP. It came about through people providing the stock answer of "Stoicism" anytime suffering was debated. It then turned into a pretty intense argument over Stoicism and Pessimism. Anyways, what I am saying currently in reply to your idea that it is a solution to human suffering is that Stoicism may be one way to try to ameliorate suffering. It is an interesting coping mechanism that might be effective for some. However, it is a coping mechanism- always after the fact. It does not address the fact that suffering exists in the first place (to be overcome with so-and-so coping mechanism). I am positing that this sort of coping is complicit in the suffering BECAUSE it accepts it as something to be coped with rather than something to rebel against. As I put it earlier
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think I see some claims here.
1. There is a proper way to deal with suffering;
2. The pessimist knows the proper way to deal with suffering
3. The proper way to deal with suffering is to face it head on without suppressing it, accepting it and not avoiding it. It's also proper to resent it, bitch at it and commiserate about it.
4. Seeking to work with it is bad (complicit).
So, does suppressing = wanting to rid the world of it?
Does admitting it exists and trying to prevent it in the future mean that one is "working with it"?, and if so, isn't that bad (because you're then being complicit)?
And of course your assertion is that "not being complicit" = making sure there are less humans in the future (anti-natalism).
I'm not sure what you mean here. Isn't it obvious that suffering does exist? Anything we do in regards to suffering is "after the fact", isn't it?
How does Pessimism propose we deal with suffering in a way that is "not after the fact." ? Does "not dealing with suffering in a way that is after the fact" also = making sure less humans exist in the future (anti-natalism)?
Does the above look like a valid summation to you?
Preventing it is not coping, it is stopping it from ever happening (antinatalism). As for bitching at it and resenting it, this is not seeking to work with it but the opposite. It sees suffering for what it is.
Preventing it is not coping, it is stopping it from ever happening (antinatalism).
Right, suffering exists period. That is the problem. What we try to do about it is one thing. But Pessimists keep in mind that it exists and that the need to overcome it itself is a burden that we make do with if we want to keep living in a world with suffering.
Quoting anonymous66
Since suffering will always exist in some way. It's best to bitch about it and see everyone else as in the same boat (as fellow-sufferers). Alleviate other's suffering as much as possible and ones own through whatever coping mechanism (Stoicism is fine if you like that), but just recognize that we ARE suffering in the first place.
Preventing it is not coping, it is stopping it from ever happening (antinatalism) for a potential future person. As for bitching at it and resenting it, this is not seeking to work with it but the opposite. It sees suffering for what it is.
Yes for the potential future suffering. Of course it does not address the suffering of now (i.e. the instrumentality of existence, unwanted pain, goals that are never satisfied, flux and never stasis).
In any case, both teach a sense of detachment from the vicissitudes of worldly life. I think the problem we have nowadays is that the instinctive naturalism of the 'cultural west' has flattened our perspective, so that the 'realm of sense' is the only one (that, after all, is the meaning of empiricism). Consequently there is no 'refuge' (to utlise a Buddhist term) from natural existence; we are marooned in the world of the senses.
If there is no source or ground for serenity, detachment can only be a kind of emotional indifference, which is almost like a form of callousness, or the patient resignation of Sisyphus. Consider the example of Schopenhauer, who is often referred to as the typical pessimist philosopher:
The point is, I don't believe that Schopenhauer, despite having recognized this important truth, ever realised the stage of actual cessation - for him it was a remote ideal, personified by the stereotype of saints and sages. In other words, Schopenhauer realised the 'first noble truth' of Buddhism, that of dukkha, but had no experience of the cessation of suffering. That's why he was pessimistic, because he couldn't see any way out, save in terms of a stereotype of saintly asceticism which presumably was quite unrealistic in practical terms. We can't really blame Schopenhauer, as obviously his access to the actual teachings of Buddhism was almost non-existent - it's amazing that he got as far as he did. But I don't think he grasped the reality of the 'end of suffering'. (For a good essay on Schopenhauer and Buddhism, see this PDF.)
So I wanted to draw that point out, because I think that the point of 'philosophical pessimism' has to include some sense of there being a solution to it, or a way of transcending it.
Othewise it can only ever be
Thanks Wayfarer.
But as I understand, what is ceased is the "suffering as a mental attitude" or how one feel's about the causes of suffering. The causes of suffering such as bodily pains, work/stress, and boredom still occur to the buddha every now and then, but his attitude towards these does not bother him much (equanimity). He understands that these causes of suffering is a fact of life to all people and is very much compassionate especially to those who have not yet realized buddhahood. For the living, suffering is inevitable and can only be overcome.
[EDIT] I have the following questions if you wouldn't mind answering:
1. If I'm reading Schopenhauer1's responses right, pessimism asks the question: "What is the value to this suffering?" or "Why do we need to be subjected to suffering in the first place?". The context of the "why" here is not that of 'what is the origin of suffering' but more of 'what is the purpose served by suffering in human life'. Does Stoicism or Buddhism provide a narrative to these?
2. For the yet-to-live, do you know the traditional Buddhist or Stoic stand on anti-natalism in terms of the prevention of future suffering? If it is OK to procreate, what is the reason behind procreating, knowing pretty well that this new soon-to-be-human has to undergo yet another cycle of suffering?
I'm not much for pipe dreams. Sisyphus is like the instrumentality of existence. We do to do to do. Our restless nature- keeping ourselves going. The outside motivating us through our culturo-survival needs and through presenting our being with unwanted pain. The inside motivating us through our restless nature turning restless dissatisfaction to pleasure and goal-seeking. That is our lives.
I have yet to read the pdf in the link but would you mind elaborating on this "source or ground for serenity"?
As I currently imagine it, this ground is a feeling of acceptance of the suffering in life and a feeling of compassion to others who are also suffering.
I think realizing this is a feat in itself and it sure is unpleasant to have to have this view for the rest of one's life. But is there really no way out?
I think a Buddhist, or a Stoic, might answer that whatever we currently imagine, is only a partial truth; we are, said one teacher, 'always the philosophers of our level of adaption'.
As regards your first question, I think the philosophical answer to that, is that you are speaking from a perspective where your sense of normality, what you consider to be normal or real, is the standard. But I think any real philosophy aims to cause one to question that sense of normality. That is why, to be honest, to really embark on the path of philosophical self-enquiry requires something like an existential crisis, which must necessarily up-end what we take for granted or think is real. (In Zen that is called 'the great doubt'.)
What do you think might be the rationale behind religious celibacy? That might have something to do with it!
[quote=Schopenhauer1"]That is our lives.[/quote]
Saith Sisyphus.
Nope. I don't believe Buddha achieved some ego-death/Nirvana. I don't believe any Sage achieved some eternal equanimity. Pain sucks for everyone. The pressures of cultro-survival sucks for everyone. The instrumentality of our restless nature goes on for everyone. I do think that some psychological techniques (cognitive-behavioral therapy for example) might work for some people for limited applications. That's making do. Everyone thinks themselves a warrior- of mysticism, of physicality, etc. The warrior-monk will go in there and tear some stuff up with their asceticism. The warrior-athlete will tear stuff up with their physical prowess. No matter what, instrumentality is the law, unwanted pain exists, and we all deal with our culturo-survival demands.
----
To be specific, I can't connect your response above on philosophy-limited-by-experience with the 'source or ground for serenity' you mentioned before. So I guess you're saying that you have an answer but I won't be able to appreciate/understand in its entirety because we have different experiences/nature? But would you mind sharing it nonetheless?
----
With regards to procreation, I'm getting that celibacy is an option and Stoicism and Buddhism has no one-answer-fits-all solution. But if this is the case, what is the rationale behind allowing other practitioners to procreate knowing full well of the inevitability of suffering?
I have a feeling that it relates to the philosophy-limited-by-experience you mentioned earlier. If the practitioners don't understand the rationale, it basically boils down to a sort of dictatorship. The decision must come from within and not from without.
Am I following your line of thought? Would you mind sharing your current personal stand on procreation?
----
I have also edited one comment above and am highlighting it here for your easy reference:
Quoting OglopTo
Consider the paradigmatic relationship between the sage and the aspiring philosopher, in many traditional schools. It is that the sage/teacher sees or knows something that the aspirant doesn't. So a lot of what is narrated in Zen, in particular, are the sudden shifts of perspective which are referred to as kensho or satori - insight into the way things are. I'm sure there are parallels in the Stoic literature although I'm not familiar with it.
So going back to your statement: 'a feeling of acceptance of the suffering in life and a feeling of compassion to others who are also suffering' - I said that this is certainly part of it, but I think there is something more. But what that 'something more' is, might be a very hard thing to grasp: something that the sages know, that us ordinary people do not. Which is why, presumably, we go along and sit outside the porch (stoa) and listen to their discourses!
And that might cause a shift in our understanding, such that our previous assumptions about suffering and its role in life, are quite dramatically transformed.
But that sense of there being a hidden or higher knowledge is alien the current culture - heretical, actually.
I have two grown sons. I will acknowledge that I have socially conservative views on marriage and family life (so much so that aforementioned grown sons think I'm a fogey).
But in any case, the answer I gave was in a sense theoretical - the rationale for religious celibacy is the insight into the connection between sexuality, passion, procreation and suffering. So in the ancient religions, celibacy was generally regarded as normative, but then, many of those practitioners were renunciates and the cultural setting was vastly different. Obviously as culture and civilisation changes, attitudes towards such issues have to change also. But I think some appreciation of the original rationale behind the principle helps to understand the traditionalist attitude.
OK. So I guess,, with other considerations aside, you wouldn't mind having another offspring from a philosophical standpoint. Would you mind sharing the rationale behind this inclination?
Quoting Wayfarer
I see, thanks. Would you claim to have understood this 'something more'? Or at least partly? Share? :)
Quoting OglopTo
Would you mind sharing your thoughts on this?
Usually, it is the opposite of the pessimist position. Most doctrines of "hope" are built on ignoring or apologising for human suffering. They build there fictional realms where suffering either doesn't matter or is resolved-- Stoicism says ignore it, Christians say Jesus resolves it, Buddhists say it doesn't matter, etc.,etc. All approach the question as if there is a resolution to human suffering.
The pessimists know better. They understand sin cannot be paid for, that pain aways hurts, that suffering, if it occurs, cannot be magic'd away. Some pessimists are open to the possibility of something more, in the sense that life is not always suffering, but it's a moment of being other than suffering rather than undoing anything people suffer.
In the respect, the pessimist (rightly, in terms of accurate description of the world) calls out other philosophies for taking the easy way out. "Something more," in the sense of ignoring or (supposedly) undo suffering, is to take a short cut--in the face of the horrors of the world, we turn away and pretend they aren't there. We fail to come to terms with suffering and are unable to posit joy and wonder despite (and with) all those horrors.
Indeed. For Schopenhauer treats suffering as the constant state of life. Willing (supposedly) always burdens us, to a point where we can never do anything and be content. We are (supposedly) under the constant pressure of life and cannot have contentment at any time.
The absence of suffering, that moment we are content in ourselves (whether that be sitting in a monastery or playing with our kids), is considered impossible by Schopenhauer-- sometimes a philosophical pessimist's concern for suffering obscures how other things happen in the world.
Quoting Wayfarer
I see. So in the end, I think that we're left to our own devices to make sense out of human life -- sounds really difficult.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts as always. :)
Quoting schopenhauer1
I also have this feeling that maybe stories of sages and buddhahood, while they may contain some truth, may also be overly romanticized. Over time, some sort of supra-human ideal 'teacher' has been projected to a person who is probably not too unlike many of us; who time and time again experience pain, stress, and boredom. The difference is that, they have a positive outlook even after realizing this. Maybe history and politics played a role, the unsavory aspects of their being are filtered out and their internal struggles a mystery -- what is palatable gets retained and the remainder gets forgotten.
It's an interesting realization how having a negative outlook doesn't get the same attention as having a positive one. There are no Buddhas or Stoic sages who profess a negative outlook in life who gets the same degree of admiration. Majority of us don't have a clue what this all means and yet pessimism is, most of the time, automatically met with apprehension and pre-judged to be an incorrect way of seeing things. Makes you wonder what kinds of works do pessimists of Buddha's and Jesus' time were then available but is now forever lost in history.
I don't agree with how the question is framed here. Stoicism, in philosophical terms, might ignore suffering (act as if it is not serious), but that's not the whole position. It's also a position for preventing suffering-- the Stoic sets aside so much anxiety and suffering about the world which doesn't meet their expectations.
It's really an attempt to prevent-- a call to not suffer in many circumstances-- suffering rather than just a claim of ameliorating suffering. In this respect, it's not different than any other philosophy or hobby we might partake in to have some satisfaction (or even contentment) in our lives.
You disagree with me? Never. I can agree that they attempt attempts to avoid pain. I just don't think it happens to the extent of creating Sages or Buddhahood. In other words they may attempt avoidance but all they get is coping.
That is a good analysis of how the "supra-human" ideal teacher remains as the reality is forgotten.
Quoting OglopTo
I completely agree. Negative outlooks are dismissed. It might be a problem of life in analog and digital. In analog, it is lived out in all its grittiness. However, when asked to formulate a cogent philosophy, Pollyanna outlooks ensue and the past, future, and "meaning" of things gets either a rosy gloss or an escape-hatch regimen (i.e. the warrior-Sage, etc.). I get the ideal of being calm and indifferent in the face of flux and pain. It is just not achievable. The fact that suffering exists in the first place should give us pause.
At this point, I might even question some of the philosophies themselves. The Tao.. the Way.. the flow of the universe.. do not resist.. The Logos.. the natural reason of the universe.. the Buddhist ideas of letting go.. Perhaps even that is being complicit. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. It is romanticizing a mystical stillness behind the suffering that one can tap into. Again, one can cause certain mental states for limited period of time, that is it.
Buddhism sees suffering as distinct from pain. We cannot, as long as we are embodied, avoid pain, but we may choose, by releasing our attachment, not to suffer it. The Stoics too, were onto this idea.
Prevention, however, is different. In moments where suffering doesn't exist in the first place, there is no problem. I am arguing Stoicism creates these moments. Not false "coping" with suffering, where we try to tell ourselves our suffering isn't a lie, but an absence of these moments, where some of our worst anxieties over not getting what we want are eliminated.
If someone becomes a Stoic and changes from a person who flies off the handle at every disappointment, to someone who's disappoint passes or never becomes life consuming, states of suffering have been prevented. There's no illusion to on longer feeling constantly upset of anxious about what they world did not give you-- it's a real absence of a suffering.
Your pessimism is still caught under the illusion of "coping." It treats suffering like is something which could be resolved, as if it were a matter of "coping." As a result, you read instances where suffering is prevented as "coping." The Stoic's victory (prevention) over suffering (prevention of anxiety and disappointment) is misread as their philosophical falsehood (that one can "cope" with suffering). Unless, we undo suffering we are supposedly "just coping." That's not how it works. Suffering is never undo. Life hurts a lot of the time. Victory (i.e. prevention) over suffering doesn't change this, it merely gives us some wonderful moments where we are not burned with a suffering.
Your position is not pessimistic enough, for it still treats suffering as something to resolve, and ignorant of prevention, as it treats undoing suffering as the standard for preventing suffering.
Yeah, I'm well aware. I just do not think it's really sustainable. Shoot me.
Sustainable by whom? You? Or others?
Yeeah I don't believe it, unless a serious mental/physical handicap/disability befalls us. Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
I agree this can happen some of the time. I don't disagree some cognitive-behavior self-modifications can work. I just don't think suffering ends and not all situations apply. So I guess I am disputing its efficacy and totality of such self-modifications, not that it can never be employed in the first place.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Not really, because I do not think we can prevent suffering once alive. Again, I am challenging the efficacy but not that it cannot work in any circumstance or for some people. We are not a Jedis andwe cannot see through the matrix.. We are just poor schlubs caught in life's instrumental moving forward.
All, baby!
I'm talking in the sense of existing without suffering. In the sense of eliminating certain instances of suffering, it can work perfectly well. "Sagehood" as read by Schopenhauer misreads the nature of suffering and its prevention. Supposedly, all suffering must be eliminated to reach Nirv??a. Although not in the spirit of Buddhism (in practice, it really suggests: "Suffering is not something you should endure extra suffering for. That's just dumb. Eliminate it), the reading is consistent a literal reading of some of the texts.
In this respect, Buddhism presents a fiction of "hope" as a stepping stone to eliminating particular instances of suffering. We might not ever become above all our suffering, but the idea (however brief) is sometimes someone breaking out of a nihilistic funk.
The philosophical pessimist isn't intersted in such fictions. They want to look at the horrors of the world, describe them and take us forward in that knowledge-- to recognise suffering an act appropriately towards it.
No-one said it was or had to be total. That was your supposition. You're the one who says any prevention of suffering must be total to be effective. How we ever to make progress in such an environment? If you are saying all prevention of suffering is actually worthless because its not total, then how is there a distinction between preventing suffering and causing it?
Neither is better than another becasue neither reaches the goal of eliminating all suffering. Even anti-natalism becomes no better than having children because it can't eliminate all suffering-- it remains true that all those people suffered be for their death.
Supposedly, we can't, in your words, prevent suffering once alive. If total absence of suffering is the standard, this inability extends to the death of all life too.
You are saying prevention of suffering cannot work-- you outright said it: "because I do not think we can prevent suffering once alive." Every instance of prevention, under your argument, is a failure because it doesn't totally eliminate suffering.
How is it that you feel qualified to speak for "all"?
The point about pessimism is that suffering comes naturally. We don't control our bodies, we don't control our environment, we don't control our desires as much as we wish we did. The prevention of pain by the satisfaction of concerns is the primary purpose of human existence. Whereas fun requires effort and does not come naturally. Suffering is a structural aspect of life, fun is an accidental aspect of life.
Being completely detached from suffering? Yep.
There is no making progress. As I said earlier: Quoting schopenhauer1
There is of course the third option of whatever lies inbetween. So it is quite wrong to construct a philosophy around a forced binary view when the reality is that most of existence is meant to be lived as a balance between two bounding extremes.
Your approach is flawed at its root.
Quoting darthbarracuda
There is some truth in this, but look at how you keep needing to mention the "we" who fail to be in control. You take it for granted there is the "self" who is at the helpless centre of things, when psychology tells us such individuated being is a social construct. Animals just don't have the same ideas about life and so don't bewail the limits and efforts of being "a self" in the way you claim is so natural.
So what would be natural - in the biological sense - would be a condition of equanimity and flow. The uncertain world would be well-predicted enough for life to run smoothly on an even keel. That would be the target animals by their neurological design would be shooting for. A homeostatic balance.
But humans construct their own psychological world. And in modern life, we paradoxically have both far more, and far less, control over that construction. Modern life has a way of sorting us more sharply into winners and losers. It creates the ladders to status, success, reward, etc. But in sharpening the definition of the way to live in this fashion, by promising the greatest intensity of fun awaits at the end of the climb, it also sharpens its opposite, the consequences of failing on the climb, or even attempting to avoid being part of the social race to society's chosen destinations.
So the point of that is that we are social creatures, but are we now creatures still targeting a natural state of equanimity? And if not, why not?
Pessimism is thus just a symptom - the flipside of optimism. And both are essentially equally meaningless in a naturalistic context. Or at least, they should rightfully be passing psychological states if the long-term state of adaptedness ought to be one zeroed on smooth stoic equanimity.
If pessimism or optimism becomes a fixed state of mind, that tells of a mind that is no longer really thinking (and finding the path that points back to an even state of balance).
Firstly, it is being competely detached from pain which is at issue here.
Drugs such as opiates and nitrous oxide show this to be possible.
In any case, I doubt you would be prepared to claim that it is not possible to be more or less detached from pain.
Pain, emotional or physical, is greatly amplified by certain kinds of 'attached' thinking into, at worst, a feeling of being hopelessly ,and, what is perhaps even worse, pointlessly, trapped. This is true suffering, no doubt, but it is really nothing more than a state of mind, that would be quickly dispelled by a shot of heroin or a dose of MDMA, and may be just as effectively and far more permanently sidestepped by discipline.
I see. The warrior again.
If it's flawed, then what is this third option (other than unconsciousness, whether that be by sleep, or by unintentional/intentional death?)
Quoting apokrisis
Again, there's a difference between psychological and philosophical pessimism.
Stoic equanimity works well in the classroom and the textbook. Out in the real world, not so much. The fact that we have to limit (balance) ourselves means there is a problem that must be resolved. The fact that we even have to have a debate over this means that there is something wrong - and if it's the psychology of the pessimists, then we merely have to realize that the pessimist is merely a manifestation of the world. We would come to realize that the universe is capable to inflicting harmful delusions upon its manifestations - if the pessimist, in all his horrifying existential theories, is actually wrong, then why is the pessimist even able to have these horrifying existential theories to begin with? Essentially, pessimism is an argument for pessimism.
Equanimity is artificial, contrived. It's forced into existence and held into existence by the sheer will of the psyche - I will be virtuous, I will not descend into panic, I will kick all my miseries under the rug and pretend everything is fine and ignore everyone else's tragedy, etc.
Quoting apokrisis
How do you know what ideas animals have? From a harm-based perspective, we ought to assume that behaviorally-similar organisms possess similar psychological facilities.
Furthermore, the "self" being a social construct doesn't change the fact that it's keenly present in our everyday experiences.
Again, this simply repeats your metaphysical presumptions - the very thing I question.
Your foundational view of reality is that existence must be based on some solid ground of some kind - something that is the opposite of the dynamism or contingency we see in the world itself.
But I take the other view where the foundation of existence is instead dynamical freedom - Hericlitean flux. All is chaos until it is stabilised. And so balance - a state of dynamical equilibrium - is how the stability of things arises.
These are diametrically opposed ontologies. So where you would expect something to be the monistic solid foundation for existence - like pain or suffering - I would instead expect a dynamical balance to be that "solid foundation" for what persists. I take chaotic flux to be the unbounded "ground", and stable balance to be the emergent basis of "a world".
So given that dynamical ontology, it is not a problem that we would seek balance. The only problem is that in the "real world" - that is life as rich westerners live it in the 2010s - might be a radically out-of-equilbrium biological lifestyle.
So the point of philosophy is to be able to put a finger on what is actually wrong (if it is indeed wrong) in terms of a common culture. And not to conflate some bad social design with a metaphysical verity about the foundational condition of existence.
That's just rubbish. I've already said that panglossian optimism is just as fake as your universalised pessimism.
Equanimity is a natural goal because the balancing of dynamics is the only real way for existence to achieve stability and solidity of any kind.
So your response here - to protest against being expected to contribute to your own balancing by claiming cosmic helplessness - is childish. Except even children don't believe they are actually helpless.
Quoting darthbarracuda
As usual, one doesn't claim to "know things" in some sceptic-proof absolute way. One simply has made the pragmatic effort to minimise one's uncertainty about a claim. So yes, comparative psychology, and even the neuropsychology of pain responses, is something that has been closely studied.
This isn't this kind of debate apo. I'm saying that the structure of life as we know it has components that nevertheless make the organism suffer. I don't need to postulate that suffering is some grand metaphysical scheme to argue that suffering is a necessary component of organic existence.
Quoting apokrisis
Except it's not childish, since the balancing act requires the human organism to artificial limit the contents of their consciousness to avoid panic. It's certainly "possible" to achieve a certain stability (although death is the ultimate achievement of stability), it's just that this is quite difficult to do and doesn't come naturally.
Nice ad hominem, I continue to wonder why those opposed to pessimism get all bent out of shape if pessimism really is as silly as they claim.
Quoting apokrisis
And given these studies we can come to realize that animals are much closer to us behaviorally than we might have expected.
I like this and I agree as applied to one's worldview: once faced with the question of existence, one opt to adapt a worldview in the end if one decides to continue living in the face of uncertainty.
But what I'm currently thinking is that it is possible to have achieved equanimity, in the sense of having accepted the human condition for what it is and not too bothered by the trivialities of life, but still have the following outlooks:
(1) an optimistic outlook where one thinks that there is probably some meaning behind the suffering
(2) a pessimistic outlook where one thinks that there is probably no meaning behind the suffering
(3) neither (1) or (2) where the question of meaning behind the suffering may not be binary in nature, much like the non-binary logic behind some Buddhist stands on metaphysical questions but I haven't explored this much yet
In relation to this thread, I'm seeing Buddhism as falling under (1) and Pessimism under (2). I'm not sure though where to place Stoicism because as I infer from this thread, Stoicism doesn't even ask the question of meaning behind the suffering in the first place.
Wouldn't Buddhism generally be a form of equilbrium thinking in being a practice of ceasing to care in terms of a personal reaction and instead taking on a cosmic indifference. Stoicism would be similar.
So where I would criticise that is we shouldn't want to simply "rise above" the world in some transcendentally dispassionate fashion. Instead we should aim instead to equilbrate our feelings with the world through our actions. So we should stay part of life, and then work to negotiate towards outcomes that feel balanced - in terms of us and our cultures, us and our ecosystems. The final one of us and our cosmos is probably too disconnected to really worry about balancing in practice.
Can we care about that which we can not affect? It would only be if we were making a social decision - such as to whether to seed the universe with our idea of life (the good life!) in some fashion. Like launch a billion nano-bots to the distant stars in panspermic fashion. :)
Being silly is a silly thing. So that would be the reason for being opposed.
But yes, personally I find the constant harping of the pessimist on these kinds of boards very annoying. Such whining is only possible from a point of material privilege.
It is quite true that the materially privileged are precisely those who will find themselves born in a world of high social expectations. The cultural message is look at everything you have got. You have less reason than anyone to go out and use that advantage to really achieve as an individual.
So to be born advantaged is also to feel caught in a particular kind of trap. And it may be apparent that the social game being played is in fact quite phony (Holden, where are you?). Existence has no intrinsic meaning, yada yada.
But from there, adopting a position of cosmic helplessness is bad analysis. If the game is wrong in your opinion, get involved in changing it. And be prepared that the thing that needs to change most is yourself - because the issues aren't cosmic at all, merely local and social.
That's bollox. In some aspects - which can be defined - we are just scaled-up apes. In others, we are radically altered by the individuating power of language and cultural evolution.
Do you think chimps and dolphins feel pessimism? Is that an abstraction that might rule their waking lives?
While both Stoicism and Buddhism seems to advocate for some sort of equanimity, there is something more in Buddhism. It tries to explore the nature of suffering (Four Noble Truths) and builds from this to propose a generally positive worldview despite this suffering. In contrast, Stoicism does not touch the question of why there is suffering (why as in cause of and meaning behind suffering), and simply views this as something to be overcome or dealt with. In Stoicism, virtues are to be pursued for the simple reason that it is inherently good in itself; it lacks a narrative of purpose -- why should one ought to pursue virtues?
Quoting apokrisis
These are nice to hear but these are all "ought" statements. Promoting equanimity is one thing, advocating for something more is another. While it may be difficult (or even possible) to connect "is" to "ought" statements, people wouldn't be convinced by simply telling them what one ought to do. At the very least, some sort of purpose or value must be provided to justify this undertaking.
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So I guess what I'm trying to say is, sure we can devise ways to achieve equanimity despite the suffering. But this does not answer the question: "what is the purpose behind the inevitability of suffering?".
Pessimism says there's probably no meaning behind this suffering.
Buddhism says there's probably something more behind this suffering.
Stoicism doesn't touch on this issue.
If it helps, I'd like to distinguish that suffering in this context is not the 'mental state of suffering' but instead refers to the 'causes of the mental state of suffering' like bodily pain, work-related stress, feelings of meaninglessness, angst, dread, existential boredom, etc. The mental state can be altered but the causes remain regardless of one's philosophy.
I'm getting a feeling that there is a confusion/conflation of the two in the discussions.
OK, you are asking good questions. My naturalistic answer - from a biological understanding - is that suffering, like pleasure, is a sign of something for us. It is useful information.
So there is no cosmic meaning in the sense it matters (to any deity, any transcendent principle). But it is a necessary aspect of biological being because if you don't react with feeling to the world, you don't have any reason to do things that might change those feelings. And we evolved those feelings because they lead us to do the right kinds of things in terms of biological success.
But then you say you want to distinguish between the mental state and the worldly causes? I don't really get that.
My argument is that the feelings are evaluations of a worldly state - how we feel about social and environmental situations. So to change the state of feeling we would try to do something in terms of what we understand about their causes.
Therefore your comment - "we can devise ways to achieve equanimity despite the suffering" - seems wrongly focused in trying to ignore what we can't control, rather than instead seeking to adjust in ways our feelings are meant to indicate that change is needed.
Now this is easy with simple hurts. If I step on a sharp rock, I jump quickly off it. But it is then true for humans - having socially constructed powers of understanding - can remember all hurts long after they have physically ceased, and can imagine all hurts long before they ever might happen. So that level of knowledge may indeed be a burden, creating pain or anxiety where there is no immediate cause.
So humans have the capacity to magnify their capacity for suffering by making the contemplation of everything that could be bad or wrong a constant mental habit. That's quite obvious.
But also, isn't the obvious counter to work on that as Buddhism suggests - meditative practices to be in the moment. Or as modern positive psychology suggest, the antidote to pessimistic angst is to realise just how of a habit it really is, and how a different habit of mind might have to be learnt.
What I react to in pessimism as philosophy is that it is usually just a crap intellectual justification for a certain habit of mind. I can understand why such a pattern of thought would arise so strongly in modern culture. But it is also a self-damaging one that shouldn't be encouraged by retrospective rationalisation. Philosophy shouldn't be used to prove the way you are is the way you ought to be because that is the way reality really is. Philosophy should be a tool that might get you out of such a hole rather than a tool to dig it even deeper.
No, it's not that. That is how it was understood by European scholars who discovered the texts in the 19th Century; Nietzsche characterised it as 'the sigh of an exhausted cvilization' (although he nevertheless professed some admiration for it.)
But that doesn't encompass the sense of compassion which is found in Buddhism. Granted, it's a hard thing to tap into, but once it is tapped into, it is real.
The bottom line with any of the higher spiritual teachings, is that what the aspirant finds through them, is better than sex, money, fame, wealth, or any of the other seeming goods that most people spend their lives pursuing. So that is not simply indifference for its own sake, but putting aside something lesser for something greater.
Such thinking is based totally on hedonism, i.e. 'pleasure=good, pain=bad'.
The basic difference is that you can do something about the suffering-as-a-mental-state but you have limited to no control over its causes. For example, we can't have a life that is ever free of diseases, death, stress-inducing events, etc. but we can somehow control how we react to these situations.
I think it's important to make the distinction because we are trying to explore what is the meaning/purpose why humans are subjected to such causes-of-suffering.
Quoting apokrisis
Nice, suffering-as-a-signal is a useful framework to work with. But what does it signify? Maybe this is where one of the points where the differences in philosophy lie. We can see it from a short-term and from a long-term perspective:
(1) From a day-to-day perspective, it makes sense to deal with daily suffering if one decides to continue living. If a part of your body aches, it's a signal that maybe something's wrong and you can opt to get some medication. If you're stressed at work, maybe it's a signal that you are overworked and you can opt to get some rest. If you feel empty and feel a sense of meaninglessness, you can opt to subscribe to religion/philosophy/etc.
It does not make sense to dwell on these on a prolonged basis even for philosophical pessimists. I imagine that they too can develop a sense of equanimity and manage to move on with daily life.
(2) On the other hand, from a long-term perspective, in a span of a lifetime or even the span of human existence since antiquity, what does the presence of the causes-of-suffering in human life signify? Taking a suffering-as-a-signal framework at this level, from a pessimist's perspective, maybe this signifies that there's something wrong about the human condition? From a Buddhist perspective, maybe this signifies that there's something transcendental about the human condition?
I think that it is the pessimist's stand that try as we might, we can't change the fabric of human condition, that is, the causes of suffering will never cease to exist. We can't do anything to decouple the causes of suffering from human existence and pessimists claim that this condition is undesirable. While we can't change the nature of existence, pessimism proposes that we can at least ensure that no additional people will have to suffer needlessly in the future (not procreating).
Would you still claim that at this long-term perspective, suffering is a signal for us as a species to try to change something? And what change ought to be done and why?
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So my point is, maybe the framework that suffering-as-a-signal is a useful framework.
On a daily/practical perspective, it may signal that we might need to do something with the causes of suffering on a daily basis if we decide to continue living. Pessimists do not necessarily relish on these moments of suffering and can also develop a sense of equanimity in dealing with these.
On the larger/metaphysical perspective, maybe the presence of causes-of-suffering and the fact that we are forced to experience them, is also a signal that there's something transcendental/wrong about the very nature of human life itself.
One can say that life is just the way it is and be content with that, but as humans, I personally think that it is a fundamental issue to evaluate the value of one's existence or human existence as a whole.
That is not a philosophy so much as fatalism. Nietszche foresaw that the 'death of God' and the abandonment of Christian ethics would usher in an age of nihilism, and I think a lot of people are nihilist without knowing it. It isn't necessarily dramatic - it can be simple as a shrug and a 'whatever'.
That is worded strangely. The Buddhist view is that the whole point of their practice is indeed 'the cessation of suffering'. As you have noticed already, this has been rubbished as fantasy by several participants, but obviously Buddhists see it differently.
With respect to 'transcendent' - that might be taken to mean 'beyond ordinary explanation'. For instance, the meaning of a drama transcends the specific performance in which it is depicted. In the context of philosophy and religion, the 'transcenden' is typically taken to mean what is 'beyond worldly understanding.' Of course, it is that meaning of 'transcendent' which has generally been rejected by modern philosophy, save for those philosophers with a religious bent. But I think, as a consequence, that as a culture we've completely forgotten how to even think about the transcendent. That is why very intelligent and literate contributors here can only depict it in terms of 'fantasy' or 'indifference' or whatever. There is nothing in our lexicon in terms of which it can be depicted. That is part of what I see as the crisis of modernity.
In any case, there are many schools of philosophy concerned with the transcendent - even the stoics. But all of them will depict the earthly life as only one aspect of the totality. In Christianity this is depicted in terms of 'heaven', but again I think this is nowadays understood mainly in terms of greeting cards. The question is, whether such symbolism has any basis in reality. If the drama of the human life is set against the enactment of a cosmic drama, or the fulfilment of a greater purpose, then the sufferings individuals go through might have a different meaning. I think the crisis of meaninglessness in the modern world is that we all go through the drama and angst of existence, for no real meaning. That is what 'the pessimists' seem to be saying, anyway.
I may have been too dramatic there. :)
But what I simply mean is that life will always have the causes-of-suffering but this doesn't mean that one's attitudes toward it can't be changed.
Quoting Wayfarer
Now that you mention it... Hmm...
Quoting Wayfarer
All this time, I only had the impression of cessation of personal/local suffering in Buddhism, that is suffering in the here and now and within one's 'immediate' vicinity. Is there possibly some aspects of Buddhism about the cessation of suffering in the wider context of space and time and for all humanity?
The question sounds weird though. I'm just thinking out loud since we are already talking about transcendental phenomena...
Quoting Wayfarer
True. It's difficult to have pessimistic inclinations...
The stated aim of Mahayana Buddhism is 'the enightenment of all sentient beings'. It differs from the older forms of Buddhism which were concerned with the attainment of enlightenment by the individual practitioner.
I see, philosophizing about pragmatic logic of metaphysics and ethics isn't though...That takes true poverty.
Quoting apokrisis
This is hollow, as "what it means to achieve" is cultural and also determined by the very culture (possibly of privilege) one belongs to. That is a loaded word filled with biased group/individual opinions on what achievement is or should be. I stated earlier that I don't like to be complicit with the inherent suffering by accepting it. But I know that is the one and only way to "achieve" equanimity (take that with sarcasm).. You know, the way of the warrior-Sage who "prevents" suffering with his awesome mind? Yeah that guy.. Free togas, Buddhist robes, and stern/earnest faces come with package too.
Quoting apokrisis
I think darthbarracuda was trying to explain that the FACT that suffering EXISTS to be figured out is a tragedy in itself. One that is deserving of bitching about and not just pragmatic drill sergeanting "pick-yourself-by-the-bootstrap-you-yella-bellied-SOB" reactions.
Quoting apokrisis
I don't see it necessarily as either. Also, who is to say that this cannot be applied to yourself or anyone doing philosophy at a particular moment in time? Rarely are people touting points of views they don't agree with except when asked to entertain the notion for academic reasons, or purely to be devil's advocate. Sometimes they do it to shake out their own philosophy and see if they can find flaws in it, but many ambiguous arguments can be justified in some manner or other, so even this won't necessarily change anyone's mind.
You're just preaching to the choir. NO ONE except me on these forums is going to say it is ok to bitch at suffering. And NO ONE (including me) is going to say that you should not try to get at the root cause of a particular problem if it is continuing to be harmful. As OglopTop was indicating, it is that suffering is there to begin with. This says something about the conditions of life. ALSO, the instrumentality of life is very much a part of this understanding. As I've stated before, I use the word instrumentality because that captures the idea that there is some sort of emptiness/incompleteness at the end of all endeavors. We are doing to do to do to do.
Why are you assuming I'm not active? I'm extremely active. I care about suffering, and I do things to care for those who are suffering as a result. I don't know about the other pessimists here, and that's actually one major point that I diverge from the "classical" pessimists on: if you care about suffering, you won't retreat from it, you'll do something about it.
Once again.......I'm not specifically arguing a "cosmic" metaphysical principle here. The local and social issues of Life are what are problematic. So Schopenhauer and co. are likely incorrect with their metaphysics, as they try to apply a localized phenomenon to the rest of reality, when the rest of reality should be used to explain the localized phenomenon (holism). However, that does not change the fact that they were damn accurate on their analysis of the human condition - the localized phenomenon.
If you want a tentative metaphysical principle, then I'd offer mine to be that the universe evolves surrounding constraints that emerge from Scarcity and the subsequent Fatigue (or Entropy). And, as Zapffe pointed out, as we scale "up" in awareness, so do we scale up in Concerns. So the unconscious rock has no Concerns, the lizard has a few Concerns occupying its day-to-day life, and the human being has a surplus of awareness that allows him to hold a surplus of Concerns, notably that of meaning.
According to Zapffe, the utter lack of meaning, means that we have to find ways to deal with this void of Concern. So we isolate, distract, attach, or sublimate ourselves to avoid panic. Suicide, then, is a natural death from spiritual causes.
Quoting apokrisis
No, but I think they can suffer, and that's what matters.
I accept this.
I agree that it is about connecting with something "higher", but then the question becomes whether this is your transcendent spirit or my immanent nature...
Quoting OglopTo
...and so here is where I question the very idea of wanting to control such things. Life without a struggle, without hardship, may not be life at all.
If the higher principle that would give our lives a meaningful context is immanent nature, then that embodies the principle one would aim to ultimately respect.
The egocentric response I'm am criticising in Pessimism or Nihilism is that it treats the (mythical) self as the ground of being. And I agree that is hard to avoid - in a modern culture which is hellbent on producing that very thing of the self-conscious, egocentric, human individual. But then philosophically, it is that egocentrism which is false.
Now again, there are the two ways to escape such egocentricism. Wayfarer speaks for the value of making a connection to a spiritual level of being. I would speak instead for a realism of nature - an ecological level of personal equilibration. It feels right that if society as a whole were founded on sustainable principles, then everyone would live much more happily as a result.
And yes, having any personal influence on society in this fashion feels like an impossible task. It is a Romantic vision as things stand. Which is why my response is to take the analysis a further step and consider how the current consumerist/neoliberal settings of the world are entirely natural as a response to a cosmic desire to burn off an unnaturally large store of buried fossil fuels.
From this perspective, things really are shit for humans. We have a biopsychology (a biology that includes all our general social organisation settings) that was adapted to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, but it is a biopsychology that is quite poorly adapted to the entropic explosion that is the modern industrial era.
So we can point to a source of suffering which is new and imposed upon us as modern humans. But what is then the proper response - throwing up your hands and whining with learned helplessness, or treating it as a really big speedbump in the human story? We need to find a better adaptive balance - or indeed suffer a mass extinction event around 2050.
So I don't deny something is deeply out of kilter right now. But it is not a cosmic wrong. It is just a question whether we have the resources to make an adaptive shift back to some better biopsychological balance as a species. It is a local spot of bother that one way or another can't last too much longer without some form of drastic self-correction.
Quoting OglopTo
I'm arguing the wrongness is immanent and natural, not transcendent and spiritual. But of course, in stressing the biopsychology, the two are not so far apart in terms of life practices, life advice, because both would be talking about what it is to be a mind in the world.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yeah. And it is this egocentric one-noteism that I say is so tedious and overwrought.
To talk about a feeling existing in this fashion simply ignores all metaphysical sophistication about the very question of the nature of "existence".
Does suffering "exist" really? I know my suffering is part of my experience. But to then elevate that to the level of a cosmological fact - a fundamental feature of reality that is solipsistically present, and so supposedly could have been absent - is just a wild exaggeration.
It is hard to take seriously for a minute any argument that begins with such a bum ontological basis.
The issue is clearly materialism - having declared the universe devoid of meaning, and only identifying with the material, leads to that state of 'panic' and hopelessness.
The non-difference of samsara and Nirvana, the equality of atman and Brahman, and the meaning of the Christian 'incarnation' are all statements of the 'transcendent yet immanent' nature of the ultimate.
Sure, I agree in a way about your story of an ever-escalating capacity for "concerns". But that is also baking in the very helplessness that you claim to derive as the conclusion of your argument.
So in my view, the concerns expand in concert with the value that is returned. Pragmatism in a nutshell. Properly organised concern - adaptive concern - is not open-ended in its agonising. Instead it is self-limiting because it builds in its own proper level of indifference. We don't seek control over what we can't control.
This is the big difference. We both agree that reality can't be controlled in a cosmic sense. But the pessimist then fetishises that as an open-ended source of agony. The pragmatist says that is the way things are - and it really doesn't matter. The whole point of widening the scope of concern is to take control of what can be controlled. So focusing on what can be done, rather than what cannot be done, is the psychologically healthy and natural approach.
Quoting apokrisis
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
What I'm getting is that for you, the inevitability of causes-of-suffering in collective human existence is a signal that there is something higher than the self. The 'meaning' you give to suffering is that it serves as a motivation to connecting with this higher-than-the-self which is some sort of Nature (big N). I'm sensing a parallel with Taoism, in the sense of living in harmony or in connection with the "natural flow or cosmic structural order of the universe" (Wikipidia).
I'm good with this narrative in the sense that, maybe questions of cosmic meaning will inevitably have to lead to some sort of discussions outside the self and outside the realm of what is empirical and knowable. Of course, the apparent nihilistic perspective still remains a possibility. I think it is perfectly understandable to have an 'egocentric' view of the cosmic meaning of suffering. It can really be all what there is to existence; there can also be something more.
No one knows for sure. But despite this uncertainty, in the end, I think one has to settle for some sort of interpretation to justify all the suffering one experiences.
You're defining life as a negative thing "it's suffering", and then asking, "why subject other beings to this terrible thing?"
You're saying life = suffering...
By the same vein, though, one could ask, why would one wish to avoid suffering? Aren't you claiming that suffering (or even more generally, life?)is bad in itself?
What I hear is some people saying that life is bad (because it's suffering) so, let's live our lives such that there will be less (or no) life in the future. And that will be good, because the absence of suffering (the absence of life) is good in and of itself.
I have noted earlier that accepting something as inherently bad is different from accepting something as inherently good because answering the question of purpose is critical in the latter but not so much in the former.
Pessimism is claiming that suffering is bad/undesirable because it serves no particular purpose other than for it to be overcome. This relates to the question of cosmic meaning of suffering where the pessimist views that there is no cosmic meaning to the inevitability of suffering in human life. Since it serves no particular local and cosmic significance and inflicts unnecessary pain/discomfort, it is undesirable.
Note that not-procreating is not a 'good' in itself. There is a narrative behind this assertion and that is, it derives its 'goodness' from acknowledging the fact that suffering is bad and must be minimized.
This narrative behind 'why something is good' is claimed to have been lacking in traditional stoic philosophies in that there is no explanation why virtues are good in themselves and why one ought to pursue virtues in the cosmic sense of things.
I will admit that the Stoics taught that virtue is good in and of itself, but it goes hand in hand with the idea that Eudaimonia- excelling as a human being, is good in and of itself. The Stoics taught that the Virtues are necessary and sufficient for Eudaimonia. <--- that is the defining feature of Stoicism.
And I hear others saying that they believe that life is bad in and of itself. And that is the defining characteristic of Philosophical Pessimism.
Quoting apokrisis
I'd say suffering is more "immanent" to the human condition than sustainability. This is not to say that sustainability is not important for a society to exist in perpetuity; I am not denying that keeping our society going without severe depletion of resources/critical survival needs would be a priority of our modern industrial community. What I am saying is that even if we figured out sustainability- using perfectly recycled fuels and slowing the general entropy of our local system, we would still suffer. So, is suffering a part of the human condition? I think so. Unwanted pain, and what I call "instrumentality"- the Will-for-nothing (striving-for-nothing) would still remain.
Also, you seem to assume the trope by intellectual-types that humans need to exist for the X-reason of discovery and novel technology. Why we live for a principle such as discovery is not really explained other than sci-fi aesthetics of sorts where the "discovery" moment provides some sort of species-existential epiphany.
I'm reminded of 2001: A Space Odyssey. One can read many things into that movie. The name of the ship was Discovery.. And David Bowman- the intrepid human, does encounter the "alien" Monolith and whatever created its technology. In this encounter, Bowman experiences the dimensions of time, moving through his life and is transformed into the Space Baby. Perhaps a new dawn for humans, or perhaps just a big farce- a big thing signifying nothing. I think it might be the latter. We are simply instrumental beings striving for nothing.
Quoting apokrisis
Concerns and abilities go hand in hand. We have abilities to satisfy concerns. Most of our concerns can be relatively easily met - food, drink, shelter, community, etc. However, these abilities are not perfect either, and we often screw up. If we look objectively at how much control we have in the cosmic sense, we'll be crushed at how little we actually have - and how easily everything can be taken away from us. We're desperately trying to maintain control over our environment, and somehow we keep fucking up.
We also have a concern that no other animal seems to need: meaning. Zapffe picked up on this, so did Becker, Freud, and the other various existentialists.
Unfortunately, our need for meaning cannot be accommodated by our environment, because our environment is meaningless. So we have to make do with a pseudo-solution, such as heroism, culture, pragmatic Stoicism, religion, politics, self help books, you name it.
The point being made here is that the very fact you have to tell yourself that "it really doesn't matter" means that it actually does matter - it's not obvious, and thus it is a problem that must be fixed. You have constrained your psyche and found a suitable means of escaping the panic of meaninglessness, by pretending that it really doesn't matter. It's a second-rate pseudo-poetic solution: a tragedy.
So the life-long process of limiting the contents of human consciousness (for reassurance and comfort to avoid panic overload) is natural and "healthy"...what does that say about our state of affairs?
The pessimist can be viewed as an explorer into the furthest reaches of the human psyche, the deepest, darkest pits of consciousness, the one that brings to light what everyone else has repressed. The pessimists aren't wrong in their statements...it's just that most people don't like what they have to say.
The problem with the Romantic model of human psychology is that it is pathological rather than scientifically valid. The argument starts and stops with the facts.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is yet another example of how you project on to my arguments things I've never said.
I guess I took that to mean better technology to correct the problem.
We have plenty of sustainable technology. We lack the social organisation to make the change.
I guess social technology might count too, eh? But even if we don't stretch that to fit my criticism, the main point of the criticism still stands without technology- mainly that sustainability may be a priority but suffering (the "Western" unwanted pain kind, and the "Schopenhauerian/Eastern" instrumentality kind) still remains.
I don't know what this means.
The "problem" with pessimism (life is essentially bad) is, in my view, that it lives in a state of contradiction. If life is bad, then suicide looks like the only consistent and heroic move.
Stoicism is better in this regard, but it too is "guilty" here. While I love the stoics, I also get the sense that strict stoicism is aborted suicide.
What works in both movements is the implicit self-sculpture. One learns to stop expecting the impossible and to stop getting one's panties tangled up in petty drama. There's a view from the mountain top in both cases that's maybe their "inner truth and greatness." Both movements deserve respect for their intense relevance. Both movements give us "wisdom writing." Thought, as always, one has to pick and choose carefully and adapt the words of long dead men to a very different technological and social reality.
Indeed, it is, but this also falls into the Tu quoque fallacy. Life is problematic, and even Cioran himself wondered why he hadn't killed himself yet. But this is merely a problem of will, not a problem of doctrine.
But this is a ludicrous criticism, since there can only be one way to truly and absolutely prevent suffering from occurring, and that way is - rightly in my view - rejected by the vast majority: everyone - stoics included - other than those crazed few who propose it, accept it, endorse it...
Why should anyone take seriously this absurd reasoning? It's like offering the so-called solution of cutting off your hand to prevent getting a splinter, then having the gall to criticise other solutions for being imperfect. If it's not jumping to this extreme, it's some lame appeal to art.
(Y)
I think it is more correct to see ancient philosophies including Stoicism as sets of spiritual exercises designed to bring about genuine transformation in ways of being, than it is to see them as systems of speculative metaphysics, or comforting aphorisms that allow a follower to merely cope with inevitable suffering.
I think the latter kinds of interpretations of ancient philosophies are anachronistic projections of the modern paradigm. It is characteristic of modernity and even post-modernity (despite the latter's protestations to the contrary) to think that our paradigms are so far advanced beyond the ancient that they afford a lens through which everything ancient and 'superstitious' may be rightly viewed and explained. It's nothing more nor less than cultural chauvinism. It would be much better to start from a position of acknowledgement that at least as much has been lost, as has been gained.
So, to put this into the context of the OP: Stoicism is a completely different kind of philosophy than pessimism, because the latter does not consist in any sets of spiritual exercises designed to transform, but is the expression of a meta[physical belief about the nature of the world, and the purportedly consequently inevitable nature of human life as suffering. The most it can offer is a kind of aphoristic comfort similar to what our culturally distorted model of Stoicism is thought to. "Pessimism is more beneficial than optimism because at least with the former we are either never disappointed or even sometimes pleasantly surprised, whereas with the latter we are always, or at least mostly, disappointed".
(Such maxims are deplorably simplistic in that they fail to make a proper distinction between disposition and expectation; but that is another story altogether).
2) Stoicism and Pessimism are inherently different. Pessimism might be described as a negative emotional or presumptive reaction, Stoicism as a counterpart or "cousin" would be "no-emotional reaction".
3) A Stoic would narrow their definition of suffering so as to minimize the amount of it they actually experience. A pessimist would expand their definition of suffering to include as much as possible so as to better actively avoid it.
Sorry if this is not a useful response! My 3 cents...
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First, I don't think that the complexity of human life and suffering can be captured by the simple splinter analogy you gave. For one, I think that we both agree that one's hand obviously serves a purpose and it isn't worthwhile to cut off one's hand for the mere reason of a possibility of getting a splinter.
On the other hand, there is no unanimous agreement on the (cosmic) purpose served by a new being so you can't help people from arguing that it is not worthwhile to subject additional beings to inevitable suffering for this vague/unknown purpose. The motivation is born out of compassion and I think it is quite hurtful if you just call names without providing adequate alternatives yourself.
Oftentimes, one's reason for procreating serves one's individual ideals or some institutional/instrumental purpose. I don't think this is fair and there's no reason to perpetuate this unfairness.
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Second, I am not getting any argument/rebuttal from your comment which I can respond to, so I'll just return the question back to you.
Looking the other way, "why should anyone take seriously the absurd reasoning of procreating?".
It was argued in this thread that not procreating prevents additional people from experiencing 'pointless' suffering. This notion may not be so absurd as you might think. There was a comment earlier about celibacy and its relation to suffering and compassion. Arguments were raised and elaborated explaining this idea. It's OK if you're not convinced but if you want to criticize, calling names and giving inflammatory remarks wouldn't help.
If you'd like to discuss, would you mind giving a non-selfish reason why one ought to introduce a new being into this world?
On the contrary, philosophical pessimism is a term meant to capture the realism of thinkers that others would label as pessimistic.
No, not just possibility. It's practically inevitable that you'll get a splinter at some point in your life, just like it's practically inevitable that you'll experience suffering at some point in your life. I can't say I've ever met anyone who has reached adulthood without ever getting a single splinter.
Yes, one's hand is obviously a useful tool and a worthwile thing to have, much like the rest of one's body. Of course, this only makes sense with the prerequisite of there being a living being for whom these things can be of use, and anti-natalists don't want there to be any living beings. One's hand wouldn't be very useful at all if it wasn't attached to a living being, would it? And that is just one of an inconceivably vast number of advantages to being alive which the anti-natalist proposal would wipe out.
Fortunately, analogies don't have to be exactly alike in every respect, but only the key respects which are relevant to the point being made, which they are in my analogy. The point is that it's a ridiculously over-the-top proposal with obvious costs which are seen as simply unacceptable and undesirable by most.
Quoting OglopTo
There doesn't need to be a "cosmic purpose" for humanity or any future generations, nor does there need to be unanimous agreement on what it might be, if there even is such a thing.
Of course I can't stop people from making those arguments, other than by the power of persuasion. I'm simply arguing against these arguments because I disagree with them.
If their motivation is born out of compassion, then, as someone who is similarly motivated by compassion, I feel like I should point out the great costs to humanity their proposal would cause. The vastly detrimental consequences would far outweigh any admirable intent or hurt feelings at being scolded.
I don't know why you're speaking in plural when you speak of alternatives. What do you want from me? Some miraculous cure for suffering? The very set-up is misguided and is a superficial attempt at ruling out any alternative to anti-natalism. It seems fairly black-and-white to me. We either live or die, to be or not to be, reproduce or die out, persevere through the hard times, reap the reward during the good times, or simply give up, accept defeat, and bring about the extinction of humanity. Most of us make the right choice; anti-natalists are the exception.
I'll have to stop here because I have to go to work.
TBC?
It's OK to disagree but I think it is quite counter-productive to just call names. It would have been better if you shared the reason why you disagree. You can say that it's a personal preference and I would be OK with that.
Quoting Sapientia
And this is exactly one of the reasons why one ought to question the 'practice' of procreation.
It's 'instrumentalizing' new people for one's/societies' ideologies, ad infinitum. In blunter terms, "it's OK for them to be subjected to suffering because it's for
Can you give a non-selfish reason for promoting procreation?
But I guess this is a bit off topic. :)
Quoting Sapientia
I think there is already a concensus that suffering is inevitable in human existence. The question with procreation is, why would you want to create another batch of beings-who-will-inevitably-suffer? Right now, I can only think of instrumental reasons, e.g. for the sake of X ideology.
I didn't just call names, though, did I? If that's all you've got from my posts, then I suggest you go back and read them more carefully. I don't mind elaborating if you want a further explanation, but please don't pretend that I haven't already delved into why I disagree. I have already spoken at considerable length throughout this discussion and in other similar discussions on numerous occasions. (Actually, not so much in this discussion, but certainly in [url=http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/228/why-i-no-longer-identify-as-an-anti-natalist/p1]this one[/URL], for example).
Quoting Sapientia
Quoting OglopTo
I don't think that you can win this argument about which position entails a greater cost to humanity, since there is hardly a greater cost to humanity than extinction. Whatever the downfalls of procreation arguably are, they cannot be so great as to be worse than, or to warrant, the extinction of humanity. I'm not against questioning the practice of procreation, but I am against the anti-natalist conclusion regarding procreation.
I reject your exclusive focus on suffering. By giving birth, that baby will be subject to many a thing, and suffering is but one of them. It's about the bigger picture. If you're going to defend anti-natalism, then you ought to be more clear about what that entails, since it entails a whole lot more than the cessation of suffering. If it was as simple as that may appear, then we'd all be anti-natalists. But even that sort of thinking is ill-considered, since the cessation of suffering would not be desirable for most people when they really think about it, just like how immortality would not be desirable for most people when they really think about it, or, for that matter, being hooked up to a pleasure machine.
Quoting OglopTo
Yes, but I don't need to. Not all conceivable selfish reasons for promoting procreation are immoral, and even if they were, the consequences are more important. I'm glad I'm here. I feel fortunate to be here. And I wouldn't feel any less glad or fortunate if I was born out of a selfish desire.
Quoting OglopTo
Yes, but it isn't clear what you expect when you ask for an alternative. Given that suffering is inevitable, it makes no sense asking for an alternative. You either live and suffer, as well as experience joy and pleasure and happiness and many good things which you seem all too ready to gloss over or sweep under the rug as inconvenient truths... or you die. There are no other alternatives. It's about how you deal with life's obstacles, and I believe that the best way of doing so is to seek to overcome them.
Quoting OglopTo
Only a philosopher would think of it in that odd way. People generally want to have children because it gives them joy, despite the great responsibility and despite the chore that's involved, and because they know the joys in life that their children will themselves experience, amongst many other things: new, frightening, wonderful and countless other emotions.
I suppose I don't want my will and my doctrine to get too far away from one another. Or let's say my practice and my theory. To be clear, suicide seems reasonable to me if life becomes sufficiently painful and/or hopeless. I see/feel no duty in either direction. As a matter of persona-sculpture, though, I'd rather blend what's great about influences into a new "writer-ly" voice.
You make some good points, but my recent reading suggests (along with my intuition) that the concept of Nature or Zeus's will is very important to the Stoic system. From my point of view, the modern use of Stoicism would be stripped of this metaphysics and indeed be viewed in terms of spiritual exercises. I just reread Epictetus (the notes by his disciple and the handbook). I didn't see self-conscious self-sculpture there, but maybe I did in Marcus years ago -- mixed with a piety toward Nature.
So why does this tragicomedy have to be carried out in the first place? Why must there be someone to live out the "journey"? This seems like a hidden is-ought fallacy: because people live a mixed tragicomedy life of good/bad this must be carried out by future generations. Add to this the idea that we posses an overabundance of consciousness whereby we must try to forget that existence itself is simply instrumental striving-for-nothing (ya know- planet spins, sun goes up and down, we are always in a state of unrest and deprivation: we must kill time and survive by trying to get at any cultural/survival/entertainment goal we are lacking at any given time, all the while using mechanisms of distraction and achoring to try to cope.) Even if we see our condition for the vain striving that it is (when seen in its pure form), it does not stop the Will from willing. Not only this, but all the instrumentality plays out whilst experiencing varying degrees of intrusive and unwanted pain. Thus instrumentality at the core of our existence and unwanted pain eating away at the contingencies of our existence are thus two type of suffering that exist for the human animal.
But supposedly certain schools of thought have a solution! We can 'overcome' our suffering by diminishing our own bad habits so as to live in accordance with Natural Reason. In this advanced mindset, we simply accept life in order to bare through it to the point of not even thinking about the suffering as suffering.. If we can build a warrior mindsets that can withstand bad, or not even look at the situation as bad, we can henceforth conquer the bad. Thus, the story goes, the "saintly" methodology of those who have cultivated virtuous lives will show the rest of humanity by virtue of their virtue the veracity of this mode of thought through diligent self-restraint, discipline, and practice. The true warrior Way is manifested as the adherent increases his power to master his own mind and become indifferent to that which unnecessarily causes pain. Overtime, that which seemed harmful to the warrior will not even be considered a harm. The long, arduous path of the disciplined saint will be deemed worth the effort, as towards the end equanimity of mind and the cultivated judgement of a good character will ensue... Or so the pipe dream ideal goes.
Why someone has to go through this warrior path of the disciplined virtuous saint in the first place is not explained other than it is good in and of itself which is of course begging the question. Rather, it does nothing to counter the many examples here of how people suffer, how people have to go through this "saintly" path in the first place just to get to a place so that harm supposedly makes little impact on a person.. All this work to "overcome' when it could have simply been avoided. The much more elegant and justified answer is antinatalism. There is no arduous journey to have to master, there is no unwanted pain, there is no instrumentality (whether just living it, (or even worse) the self-awareness of it.. ).
I don't see why a modern practice would necessarily be "stripped of this metaphysics"- at least when it comes to nature, and not even necessarily when it comes to Zeus; if the myth of Zeus was found to be productive for some practitioner's spiritual exercises. That said, I don't believe it is nature or Zeus 'as metaphysics' which is the Stoic's concern, anyway.
So, my point was that stoicism should not be understood as a system of metaphysics at all, but as a system of therapeutics and transformation; in that regard the point you make about metaphysics doesn't seem particularly relevant.
Quoting Sapientia
OK, my bad. I only responded to your immediate reply.
At this point, I'm not sure if I'm ready to argue that procreation is immoral per se, but so far, I think it lacks sufficient justification.
I think we agree in some points like the inevitability of suffering in life and that there's no way to remove it from human existence so I'll just look at the other striking points.
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From you reply, I get the following:
1. There is value in human existence and its perpetuation, hence, human extinction should be avoided.
2. Offsprings give parents joy. Parents want their offspring to experience joy.
3. You're glad to have been born, even if it was born out of selfish reasons. You see no harm in creating a new being.
For me, it wouldn't suffice to use one of the following as justification for procreation:
(1) I want a child because of
E.g. I want someone to take care of me when I grow up, I want someone to take over the family business, I want someone to give me joy and inspiration as we both grow up, I want someone to solve the problem of world hunger, I want someone who will change the world, I want someone to finish what I have started, I want someone who will accomplish what I failed to accomplish, I want someone who will give joy to others, etc. etc.
I feel that it is unfair to project one's expectations to anyone to further one's own interests. The very idea of using somebody to fulfill one's desires and expectations just feels so wrong. It could be a different matter if the child can give his consent prior to being born, but we know that this is impossible -- all the more reason to take procreation seriously.
(2) I want to bring new beings who will experience joy.
If this is your reasoning, it is necessary to explain why we need to have new beings to experience joy. It's not like we need to have X billion enlightened people before life ceases in the universe and then its mission accomplished.
(3) There is inherent value in human existence so extinction must be avoided.
If this is the reason, one has to elaborate why perpetuating the human race is so important. If one cannot justify this fully, it is unfair to subject new beings to suffering for such an unclear justification.
Why must we prevent human extinction?
(4) I'm glad I'm born and I see no harm in creating new beings.
I think this is also selfish in the sense that you are projecting your (potentially limited, and probably subjective) worldview to a non-existent someone who cannot give his consent beforehand.
If you are truly compassionate for the suffering that this non-existent someone will surely experience, why would you gamble that he will eventually reach a similar worldview? What is it to be gained with this gamble? If you say that the joy is worth the suffering, are you not imposing your own value-judgment to someone who may not necessarily agree.
But then again, is it even fair to gamble with someone's life in the first place?
(5) It's just the way things are.
Err...
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TLDR:
Most of these questions of purpose, I think, as I commented earlier, eventually leads to the realm of the metaphysical/transcendental/unknowable so it would be very difficult to get a coherent answer. However, if one is to rely solely on what can be observed about the human condition, it is difficult to justify why one ought to create new beings.
I'm not trying to convince anyone to not procreate per se. It's more an invitation to take a second look at the 'norm' of procreation and reviewing the motivations behind such norms. Because out of compassion, I think it is a serious issue to haphazardly/selfishly/ignorantly subject additional beings to additional suffering.
I think that if one decides on procreating, one must have a clear picture of why one wants to do so, in light of subjecting new beings through another cycle of suffering. You might say that it is unfair to focus only in the suffering in life, but we can't deny that there is suffering and this suffering that new beings would have to experience must be justified.
If your justification is one enumerated above, I'm not convinced. Its not that you need to convince me or anything, I'm just interested how far you can elaborate on your views.
For starters, given our many discussions on this subject, you should know by now that "must" and "have to" have no place in my view about procreation.
I find it odd or perhaps convenient that you choose to bring up the is-ought issue now, on this particular topic, regarding what you take to be my views, when it is a general problem which applies across the board to virtually anyone... and you are no exception.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Existence isn't accurately described as striving-for-nothing, I don't accept what you read into instrumentality, we aren't always in a state of unrest or deprivation, and it isn't all about survival, distraction or coping. That is just the expression of a blinkered view.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The will isn't bad, per se. Schopenhauer was wrong about that and other things.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Sure, there are varying degrees of pain and suffering that we experience from time to time, and there are also varying degrees of pleasure, satisfaction, happiness and contentedness which we experience from time to time. That's life. I don't somehow jump from that to the absurd conclusion that extinction would be best.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't agree with [I]all[/I] of that, and it's clear that your intention is to ridicule, but I think that it's still a better alternative to pessimism, especially when coupled with anti-natalism, which is far more ridiculous than stoicism.
Yes.
Quoting OglopTo
No. We live in a world in which one is susceptible to harm. I'm saying that that isn't sufficient reason to be against creating a new being.
Quoting OglopTo
Sure, at least some of those will be bad reasons.
Quoting OglopTo
It isn't necessary. It doesn't need to be and I never said it was. It isn't about necessity, yet for some reason that objection keeps coming up. That it is a good thing for new people to get to experience the joys in life, and that they won't necessarily - or likely in many cases - live a life that is so awful it isn't worth living, is reason enough. The risk doesn't outweigh the gamble. And for those relatively few cases in which a life is so awful that it isn't worth living, suicide is almost always an option, and you'd expect them to be determined enough to go through with it if their life really is so awful and not worth living (which it isn't in most cases, hence suicide isn't advisable).
Quoting OglopTo
No, that's not my view. There is value, but I wouldn't exactly say that it's inherent.
Quoting OglopTo
No, just the first part. My views are in spite of the harm, which I acknowledge.
Quoting OglopTo
It is limited, yes. But it's not just subjective. And it isn't selfish. We know things about human nature, and the world, and we know that the vast majority assent to being glad that they're alive, and that it is likely that, for the most part, a new generation will feel the same way. In that respect, it's the opposite of selfish; it's altruistic.
The issue of consent is a nonsense that doesn't and can't enter the equation. There is no realistic alternative where consent is an option.
Quoting OglopTo
Because the odds are in my favour.
Quoting OglopTo
I can't believe you even have to ask that question. A life worth living is no small thing.
Quoting OglopTo
No. That might be the reason for their existence, but they are free to judge for themselves. They'll probably reach the same conclusion, though, in spite of those times when emotions run high and they aren't thinking clearly.
Quoting OglopTo
We'd be worse off if we didn't, which I think is more important than this peculiar view of fairness. It appears to be the same notion that the petulant child appeals to when he has a tantrum and shouts that he didn't ask to be born, or something along those lines.
Quoting OglopTo
It is, though; and it's highly unlikely to change of our own accord. This is actually an important point, because it highlights the redundancy and detachment from real-world practical solutions involved in anti-natalism.
1. Presence of suffering in life is not sufficient reason not to procreate.
2. That it is a good thing for new people to get to experience the joys in life is reason enough [to procreate]. It is not necessary to explain why
3. There is some value in human existence. More specifically, you place value on a life-well-lived. You deem allowing new beings to experience this as altruistic.
4. Since majority are glad that they are alive, it is likely that the new generation will feel the same way.
5. You believe that life will, more often than not, turn out to be 'worthwhile'. You're willing to gamble that a new life will turn out to be good rather than bad because the odds are in your favor.
6. While you think it isn't advisable, for the unfortunate, in case of really awful situations, someone's offspring can opt for suicide.
7. That procreation is a one-way contract is a non-issue.
8. [Humanity] will be 'worse off' if it goes extinct.
9. That procreation is 'just the way things are' holds weight in the debate.
Wow. I think that we disagree on almost all of the above that I'm not sure if I can flesh out a detailed response.
So I guess I'll just leave it here for now. :)
Yes, good to know. So there is a start. We both agree, no one "has" to do anything, although I am making the claim that it is worth looking into as to whether procreation really is the best choice even under the "best" of circumstances. I just think it is not necessarily as justified as you claim.
Quoting Sapientia
Except that under my views the "ought" leads to no negative consequences and in your is-ought fallacy it leads to callousness- essentially "The world has a mix of suffering and thus since people are able to deal with it, it is justified for future people to deal with it". (I must make a non-sequiter here and point out that negative consequences does not happen to a species or an ideal, but rather to individuals, so any point about negative consequences to the species or to human experience seems moot and is only lamented by already-existing individuals whose attachment to this idea would subside or at the least would die out with them. To suggest the "pain" of a lost species trumps any individual pain of a future human would be indeed falling into the error of putting an "X" reason for someone else's suffering). I believe I brought this up many times in the past, and OglopTo has just brought it up, presumably independently, again here (meaning it is a glaring objection that multiple people can independently find in your argument..not that that in itself means something, just wanted to point that out).
Quoting Sapientia
But, you presume extinction is a real issue. Antinatalists, by and large are not thinking about "extinction" because they don't think about ethics in species-wide terms when it comes to the consequence of antinatalism. No one would be around to mourn a lost species and the mourning itself is misplaced as, it is the individual suffering which is prevented. You are projecting a future without humans (which will happen anyways) and then retroactively saying that this terror you feel trumps suffering of individuals. This seems misplaced at best.
Quoting Sapientia
Well, the ridicule is that there is this pretty hefty plan in place called stoicism as a model which is being purported in the philosophy community. It could be any other virtue-based system really. It is very much this regiment that is to be followed and apparently, this to these people, is to be enculturated by all humans who want equanimity and good judgement. Besides my natural aversion to such high-mindedness (and yes that would be subjective bias), presumably this path is a pretty hard one to fall in line with- otherwise it would be followed by everyone. I also go back to my own objection a while back that, it seems pretty odd that the stoic principles themselves (for those who believe in them) become the X reason a child needs to be born. Again, all this effort for what end, if really the end did not even need to be attained in the first place. No one has to be born to experience the enlightenment of the saints. So a) the efficacy of getting to this place may be very limited if it even exists (and not just hollow bragging by ancients who thought they had the keys to a good life), and b) the actual goal itself seems unnecessary when the alternative is no need to overcome anything, nor experience the suffering itself which needs to be overcome.
Yes.
Quoting OglopTo
No. That is taking what I said out of context. The full context is important.
Quoting OglopTo
Yes.
Quoting OglopTo
Yes, more or less.
Quoting OglopTo
I object to that phrasing, but I stand by my comment in response to that point.
Quoting OglopTo
Okay. I think it has been a good conversation, thus far.
Segue: I actually first encountered this issue in the old site and I must say that I get a lot of the ideas from your and other's posts there. :)
Let's be clear about this: either neither of us are committing an "is-ought fallacy" or we both are. Please stop superficially attempting to make your own position appear to be stronger.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That's not callousness. If they can deal with it, which most people can, then that's good, and should be encouraged. If anyone can't deal with it or has difficulty dealing with it, then they have my sympathy. But sympathy shouldn't drive one to endorse extreme, harmful and counterproductive measures. That is wrong. Fortunately, a sensible resolution is available in most cases, and we don't need to jump to extremes.
You, on the other hand, appear to have no sympathy for alleviating suffering in order to make the most out of life - which, I shouldn't have to point out, is contrary to seeking the extinction of life. That isn't humanitarian, that's anti-humanity.
In a sick twist, you seem to actually believe that you're on the side of humanity, and that you have compassion on your side, and that you get to take the moral high ground. This couldn't be further from the truth.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm talking about humanity as a whole, which is of course composed of numerous individual humans. There is nothing unreasonable about addressing the consequences to humanity. Consider it a shorthand.
It isn't true that your position has no negative consequences. On the contrary, you'd have to be very out of touch to reach that conclusion. Lots and lots of people want to have children, and there are good reasons for having children, and there is much to be gained from life. Your anti-natalism would of course prevent that. Your "cure" is indeed worse than the "illness". The "illness" comes and goes in phases and is treatable. The prognosis isn't as dire as you make out. Again, for most cases, this will be a case of cutting off your hand because of a splinter.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That anti-natalists, by and large, are not thinking about extinction is not anything to write home about. It is nonetheless an objectionable logical consequence of anti-natalism. Not thinking about it won't change that. They should bloody well start thinking about it, and think long and hard.
Of course there wouldn't be mourners. There wouldn't be [i]anyone[/I]. And that would be a travesty. You shouldn't feel proud at the thought of chucking the baby out with the bathwater as if that would be some great achievement. The bathwater pales in comparison to the baby, and that you would've succeeded in getting rid of the dirty water would be of little consolation. It'd be what is known as a Pyrric victory.
Actually I guess we both agree that no one "ought" to do anything so that is not necessarily the case. However, your justification does in fact lead to suffering, whether you mitigate it with other explanations or not, that is simply a fact- baby w/bathwater, splinters, and all other justifications aside. Mine effectively, whether too heavy-handed or not, prevents it. That again, is a fact.
Quoting Sapientia
I am not on the side of humanity, that is correct but rather a particular instance of a potential human that has the ability to occur and thus ability to experience the world's sufferings. Whether or not good is also in the world matters not to that which never was. Even if they go about exclaiming life's greatness retroactively, this does not have any ethical implications where it does seem true that preventing suffering would be ethical. No one usually feels sympathy for that which might have existed but did not get to experience joy.. People are more likely to feel sympathy for the suffering that one would experience than the deprived joy that they may not.
Quoting Sapientia
Humanity is a genus and a human is a particular. You cannot conflate the two. The species is one level up from the individual.
Regarding "self-sculpture" in the Stoics; I came across the idea in reading Pierre Hadot, that sculpting was not understood by the Greeks and Romans as a 'building up' (as we most commonly conceive it) but as a 'stripping away'.
What you fail to see is that what you say about the nature of human life does not present the one 'correct' view, but is merely the projection of your state of mind onto the world.
The Stoics were concerned precisely with how to transform the state of mind and thus transform the view of the world.
Your mischaractization of the Stoics is thus the result of trying to push a simplistic opinion about something you obviously have no experience or understanding of.
"So, my point was that stoicism should not be understood as a system of metaphysics at all, but as a system of therapeutics and transformation."
Sure, but that's what I was saying myself. I can't make use of Nature or Zeus's Will. I think the stoics were moved (probably without thinking of it this way) by a benevolent narcissism. They enacted a particular hero myth. In any case, what they did or did not think or feel is IMV secondary to the use we can make of their texts. I'm happy to throw it on the pile of "wisdom writing" with the jokes of Diogenes and God's spiel from the whirlwind in Job.
Isn't this a given for everyone? Does anyone really know the 'correct' view? Aren't we all just projecting our own states of mind onto the world?
The questions posed stand on themselves and we have to make do with what we have to try to answer them, e.g. whether trying to invoke the transcendent or inherent goodness or not. Either approach is but a projection of our states of mind to the world. Neither is absolutely 'correct' nor 'incorrect', only 'makes sense' or 'does not make sense' in view of the purported assumptions.
The point is, for me, comments like this steers away from the really juicy discussions. It's my first time to use such terms in discussions but maybe this is what they call a red herring, "something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue" (wiki).
Quoting John
What does calling out one's expertise on the subject matter attain in light of advancing the debate? Do the arguments presented get invalidated/watered down when the proponent is inexperienced?
Rather than focusing on trying to understand where the arguments are coming from and providing rebuttals, the attack is on the credibility of the proponent. Maybe this is what they call ad hominem, "directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining" (wiki).
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TLDR: What is your intention in posting this comment? How did it contribute to the discussion?
OK so maybe you just want to point out that our worldviews are limited by our experiences. But supposing that there is really lack of expertise and experience, does it automatically invalidate the questions and arguments presented?
OK, but you said "the modern use of Stoicism would be stripped of this metaphysics and indeed be viewed in terms of spiritual exercises' which is not the same as to say that you "can't make use of Nature or Zeus's Will'.
And then, I think that in your next paragraph you launch into another tendentiously modern interpretation of what the Stoics were doing. And again, the use "we" can make of the texts is not coterminous with the use you may or may not be able to make of the texts. The question is; have you genuinely tried to make use of the texts in the ways suggested in them or have you simply and pre-judiciously thrown them "on the pile of "wisdom writing" with the jokes of Diogenes and God's spiel from the whirlwind in Job"?
In some sense that's true enough, but schopenhauer1 does speak as though his or her view of the world is the only correct one. It might be OK to say that life is predominately suffering for me; or perhaps even that it is necessarily predominately suffering for me (although I have difficulty believing that view could come be supported by anything more rational than self-defeatism).
There is no warrant for claiming that life predominately consists in, or must predominately consist in, suffering for others.
Are you assuming that this subjectivism is the only correct view of the matter?
The point of phenomenology is not to evaluate your own personal experiences but to make a science of consciousness, i.e. to create a generalized account of conscious experience/presentation. I think it's clear that life has suffering, what is the issue is whether it is predominantly suffering.
If you count aesthetic disillusionment and spiritual decay as suffering, then yes, the un-manipulated life is indeed filled with suffering.
I think that the 'predominance' of suffering in life takes secondary importance. The fact that there is suffering that we need to overcome in the first place should be at least a matter of great concern -- more so given that a majority of humanity ignorantly/haphazardly create new beings who will inevitably experience this.
What is sufficient justification to subject new human beings to this inevitable fate?
Quoting John
I don't understand the question. Is the question: "Am I assuming that [pessimism] is the only correct view of matter?"
If this is the question, I would like to reiterate that I think no one knows absolutely what is a 'correct' or 'incorrect' view. For me, the claim that 'life is suffering' and the arguments arising from this just makes much more sense from the view that X is inherently good, e.g. virtue is good in itself and must be pursued.
Well at least that's how I view it for now.
If the question is: "Are there really only subjective views?"...
...then my personal opinion is that yes, there are only but subjective views. It's difficult to imagine for anyone to ever really know The 'correct' answer, there are only our own projections and interpretations of the world. We make do with whatever it is we have, and from this, we extract value-judgments of the world.
I see. I usually try to look past this and just focus on the meat of the argument. If the argument makes sense, it does not matter to me whether the poster believes it is the one and only correct one.
And if the argument does consist in claiming it is the only correct view, what then? Are you suggesting that your "focusing on the meat of the argument" is unbiased by your own prejudices?
I may agree that that 'meat of the argument' makes sense but at the same time question the claim that 'it is the only correct view'. Agreeing with a part of the argument does not necessarily mean that I agree with the rest.
I try to overlook the 'only-correct-view claim' because I don't think commenting on such points will lead anywhere. I'm much more interested in understanding what motivates such a claim, which is, whether the 'meat of the argument' makes sense or not.
And it is inherently biased. After all, my understanding and making-sense of claims greatly depends on my experiences and worldview. And of course, the ability of the poster to make himself sensible.
You don't have to reproduce if you don't want to. But there cannot be a universalization of any view concerning the moral rightness of reproduction, that it is either right or wrong, for the reason that moral philosophy can only concern itself with life, and dealing with the issues that arise out of living itself; and life is impossible without reproduction.
Again, that life is dependent on reproduction, and vice versa, does not justify either reproduction or life, because to achieve that one would have to justify either one in terms outside of both. But the same goes for condemnation of life and reproduction; to speak about life and reproduction in terms of approbation and disapprobation is simply to commit a category error.
And, in any case, again you are assuming that new human beings will be "subject to this inevitable fate" which is falling into the error of thinking that is the only correct way to view human life. This is unjustifiable, even it could be relevant; which in any case it cannot.
If the "meat of the argument" consists in making a blanket claim about the rightness or wrongness of life and/or reproduction, then any "sensible meat of the argument" is a chimera produced by a category error.
There is no doubt that "life has suffering". Whether or not it is "predominately suffering" is simply not determinable; so, for that reason, I think of it as a non-issue.
I would agree with you that the "un-manipulated" (in the strictly narrow sense that I am charitably taking you to be using the term) life, entails more suffering than the examined and disciplined life. However I don't like the term 'manipulated' because most of us manipulate ourselves and others in our neurotic search for gratification. It is learning to stop doing those kinds of manipulations that offers the best method to reduce suffering.
Quoting John
By 'inevitable fate', I mean, new beings will inevitably have to experience several levels of suffering. Whether few or many, they are sure to experience bodily pains, thirst, hunger, stress-inducing events, and probably the more problematic ennui, angst, and boredom. I think this is a given and makes sense, and using your own terms, a 'correct' fundamental view.
Whether one would like to attribute some value to this suffering or the overcoming of such suffering is the matter of debate. Because if one thinks that there is value to such things, then procreation is justifiable, i.e. the inevitable suffering that new beings will experience will be justified by some other good. On the other hand, if one does not see any value or meaning or purpose behind this suffering, one can feel unjustified in subjecting additional beings into such suffering.
Quoting John
I see. But in the end, one has to settle down for some kind of worldview which makes some inkling of (personal) sense.
In the above example, for me, claiming (A) that procreation is not justified is derived from the value-judgment (B) that there is no value in suffering. Judging whether (A) is sensical or not depends on whether you accept (B) or not. What I'm saying from this thread is that if one accepts (B), then (A) makes sense.
On the other hand. as I understand, claiming that (C) procreation is OK (can be justified) is derived from (D) that there is some value in human existence. For me, (D) is less sensible than (B) simply because I still haven't found a convincing narrative what this value is in human existence.
I feel that what you disagree with is the claim (B) and not per se (A). If so, I agree that this is not the only view there is, more so the 'correct' one. (A) is only invalid in so far as you deem (B) unacceptable -- a matter of which is highly subjective and of which no one really knows the 'correct' claim.
However, if you disagree with (B), and claim (C), I feel it is just calling names and doesn't help advance the discussion if you merely say that "I disagree with (B)" without expounding on some sort of something like (D).
There are a lot of nuances in the terminologies that I left out for simplicity. I'm not sure though if this will work out in trying to convey what I mean to say...
I'm not sure what you mean by "structurally necessary". Pain and pleasure are structurally, or perhaps better, functionally, necessary to the biological organism; is that what you have in mind?
Suffering is not the same as pain, though. While some degree of pain might be unavoidable as long as one remains embodied I don't believe that suffering is necessarily ineliminable (although it is doubtless no easy task); although I would agree that living an unexamined and undisciplined life would be expected to involve some degree of suffering. In any case, must any life be totally free of all suffering no matter how minor, for you to give it your ticket of approval?
As I have already said, I think the very notion that reproduction requires moral justification is mistaken, the result of a category error. unless we are talking about the question in relation to various life circumstances. To try to think about it in relation to life in general is an impossible, incoherent task.
So, I won't attempt to engage with any of your detailed arguments because I think they are all examples of the same category error; they simply cannot get off the ground in the first place, such that they would need to be dealt with. To try to deal with them individually would just involve repeating myself again and again; which would be a waste of time for both of us.
But I think some sort of justification is needed, which may or may not necessarily be about morality.
A simple answer to "why one would opt to procreate" would have to be answered. Because at the very least, we're talking about the welfare of a new life here. I don't think it's just a simple matter of just 'going with the norm' or 'just wanting to have a baby'.
If you think that the question depends on life circumstances, then what makes procreation acceptable in some circumstances and not in others? And as you may have noticed, I'm more interested in how procreation becomes acceptable in the cases where you think it is acceptable or deem it as a sort of a non-issue.
Quoting John
For me it makes sense if you accept certain claims. Its sad to hear to just dismiss this issue altogether and just go with the flow...
But, it's not that at all. Many people don't want children and don't have them; I for one don't and haven't; and I'm glad for that.
"Why would one opt to procreate?' can only be coherently answered in relation to one's own life circumstances and personal wishes. Any decision cannot be justified or condemned in relation to some notion of 'the way life is in general'. That said, if one has a very negative view of life in general, then it might be better if that one does not procreate; but moral principle would be applicable only to that one, or to those kinds of ones, not to others
OK, so I guess you're saying that the decision of procreation depends on one's own circumstances.
I'm assuming from here that you don't have a strong personal stand on this issue so I don't think I'll have other follow-up comments. :)
Anyway, thanks for engaging.
:)
But the view that life cannot offer the meaning that is sought for is one-sided. Apparently Zapffe thinks life does not have what he is looking for, but perhaps he is defeating himself from the start by virtue of his prejudices, or is looking in the wrong places, or in the wrong ways, or asking the wrong questions.
Quoting darthbarracuda
That is nothing more than one narrow, tendentiously self-defeating view. You are fucked from the start, before you even begin, if you hold a view, and begin with a disposition, like that.
Same here.
I had a look but couldn't easily find a free version (and I aint going to pay to read Zappfe). In any case, I have read some of his work before, and was not particularly impressed. "Humans require meaning in a meaningless universe" sounds like Camus. At least Camus proposed that we make our own meaning by rebelling in a kind of Stoic way against the purported meaninglessness of life. The problem I see with this supposed meaninglessness of life, though, is that actuality life is always already meaningful, and the view that says it is meaningless is a secondary derivative view of life as an object we are trying to look at dispassionately, rather than the primary view of life as a process we are participating in. The former view is parasitic on the latter, and not the other way around. The mistake made by Zappfe and other nihilists consists in thinking that the view of life as meaningful is some kind of secondary parasitic illusion; this is absurd, because life is never, prior to a certain kind of artificially attenuated abstract reflection, discovered to be devoid of meaning; on the contrary it is always experienced as being replete with meaning.
Yes, I agree Camus' rebellion is a pseudo-solution...to a pseudo-problem...which seems appropriate enough...
What makes life already meaningful is the meaning we always already find in it; what else could make it meaningful?
Not even Jesus can overwhelm sin. He's merely a distraction and fiction used to draw attention away from the suffering of the world and our finite nature. The absolute infinite is incapable over overcoming the finite--we still die, cause others pain, are unable to give everyone a just life, no matter how much we believe in Jesus or how much we are forgiven.
Philosophical pessimism's insight is there is no solution. There cannot be one. The meaning of suffering is too great. When there is suffering, nothing can be done about it.
Alas, some philosophical pessimists to not fully realise this. They treat suffering as if it has a solution we just don't have. Like the optimists they target, they believe in a myth which distracts us from suffering--if only everyone would die, then the problem of suffering would be resolved.
While this is true in sense, if everyone was dead there would be no new suffering, it does nothing to resolve suffering which has already occurred.
These pessimists aren't pessimistic enough. They think preventing any future suffering resolves the problem of suffering. Sin is supposedly paid for with the sacrifice of life. They've been caught in the distraction and promise of a fiction.
Preventing suffering does nothing to make the suffering which has already occurred better. For anyone who has suffered, the world is still just as bad as it ever was. Suffering is still unresolved where it counts.
The point was that it is lack of meaning that purportedly causes suffering; and I proposed that lack of meaning is a pseudo-problem...because there is no lack of meaning. Solutions are not pseudo because suffering overwhelms them, but because the problems they purport to solve are pseudo. Or else the purported solution is thought to consist in solving a puzzle for the intellect; when the problem itself is not, and cannot be properly understood to be, merely a puzzle for the intellect.
Whether suffering (understood as being the attachment to pain) is caused by lack of meaning or by inappropriate projection of meaning doesn't matter. Suffering is not a problem to be solved by thinking about it; but to be dissolved by letting go of attachment to it. Zappfe, judging from what little I have read of him, is woefully attached to his suffering in my view; and he, like Cioran, Schopenhauer and others of their ilk, seems to positively revel in it.
Your understanding of the meaning of Jesus, and the Christ, is inadequate and somewhat sad, but we all limit ourselves in the ways that suit us, I guess.
Your position leads the premature cessation of all things good in life. That is also a fact. My position also prevents suffering; just not all suffering, indefinitely. I'm not against preventing suffering when it is good to do so, but I am against preventing suffering when it is bad to do so. You fail to make that vital distinction, and thereby reach the wrong conclusion.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You believe that you are on their side. I will grant you that much.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I find that comment amusing, since it is a redundant line of attack. It obviously works both ways, since, equally, whether or not suffering is in the world matters not to that which never was. But, perhaps more importantly, it fails to address the important counterfactual point that there would have been someone if your proposal had not have been enacted. That amounts to lost potential, and is a huge downside to your position.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It might seem that way to you, but most people who think it through are able to realise that indiscriminately preventing suffering at such great cost would be far from ideal and [i]cannot[/I] realistically be achieved, whereas a life worth living [i]is[/I] ideal and [I]can[/I] realistically be achieved.
Quoting schopenhauer1
If most people don't usually feel sympathy for that which might have existed, but did not get to experience joy, it is because that is an unusual situation to find yourself in. But for those who are unfortunate enough to have suffered as a result of a miscarriage or infertility, then the thought of what might have existed, but did not get to experience joy, can be devastating.
But I think that it was unwise of you to appeal to how people usually feel, because I will win hands down. How do people usually feel about premature extinction or ruling out the option of having children?
I think you've got it backwards. Suffering's here; it's part and parcel of life. We should focus on reasonably reducing it, rather than endorse unrealistic, over-the-top solutions that hardly anyone desires.
If the majority of humanity are/were sufficiently informed and careful in having children, then there would still be a vast majority of those children who would live lives worth living. But there probably wouldn't be as many of them, which, in that respect, actually seems like a worse result. All of those lives worth living are of greater importance than the rationale for bringing them into the world.
I think that that's more than just possible.
I have already accepted that we won't agree, because I think the crux of the matter ultimately falls on the question of meaning.
If I get it correctly, you currently believe that there is value/meaning/purpose to be found in human existence. Hence, it is better for additional people to experience life.
I, on the other hand, currently believe that either there is no value/purpose/meaning in life or it is beyond human comprehension. Hence, there is no sense for new beings to be subjected to suffering in the first place.
I don't feel that we'll reach an agreement regarding this basic premise, at least for now and the immediate future, so I don't think I can share more than what I have already shared so far. :3
But there obviously is, so you must be seeking some special kind of meaning. The ordinary type is good enough for me.
It seems as though you're setting yourself up for failure by setting out on a wild goose chase.
Do you not at least agree that all of the lives that would be worth living are of greater importance than the rationale for bringing them into the world? Aren't the results more important? Most people do not regret being alive and would choose to continue living because they think that it's worthwhile. Are they lying or mistaken? I believe them over you.
But the spirit of preventing future suffering can make sure something that happened in the past does not happen again. The universe does not keep score, when someone dies, all their memories die with them. The suffering that occurred, the injustice and obscenity, all of this goes away after death. Forgotten.
Yes, you can say that. Only, I have stopped actively seeking it or desiring that I'll ever find it.
Quoting Sapientia
I only see the struggle for nothing ala Sisyphus -- there are no results, especially not important results.
It's tragic, in my view, to perpetuate this.
Quoting Sapientia
I wouldn't want this to come from me (it sounds elitist), but the following comes to mind: the unexamined life is not worth living.
Sure, it helps to seek guidance from others in forming one's worldview, but ultimately, one has to find one's own version of 'truth' for oneself.
Well, if it is a wild goose chase, then that would be a sensible step in the right direction. Next step: don't dwell upon it and despair to no avail, but instead learn to cherish the value that you can find within reach.
Quoting OglopTo
It is tragic to perpetuate this excessively bleak outlook. This is not a problem inherent in the world, but inherent in your outlook. But the good news is that it can be resolved.
Quoting OglopTo
Not worth living for who? You're right, it does sound elitist. I am sympathetic in some respects, but not others.
Quoting OglopTo
Sure. But I'm not entirely sympathetic to this relativism. Those quotation marks are there for a reason. They suggest the possibility of something other than truth, perhaps even falsity, which is merely given the name 'truth' and treated as such. But I, for one, would rather avoid having any misconceptions about something as important as the worth of life, since it could well be to my own detriment. If someone has got it all muddled or can't see sense, then maybe I'll try to correct them.
I don't actually believe that everyone who professes to see no meaning or value or worth in life, and who complains about and exaggerates suffering, acts in conformity with what you'd expect from someone who genuinely held those beliefs. There's probably quite a lot of those types, I reckon. You might be one of them, for all I know.
There's something horrible about this, perhaps, but a person can also find the beauty and freedom in it. Time is "real" because (from this perspective) bodily death is death indeed. Life becomes a dream between two eternities of something blacker than night and quieter than silence. One puts on the costume of the hero with one foot in the grave and grins like a Dostoevsky character. If "nihilism" is "true", then it doesn't ultimately matter whether one whines or insists on a stiff neck. But "ultimately" is just something that haunts Now along with Tomorrow and Yesterday. I'd be slow to trade the "knowledge" that "all is vanity" for some other "concept religion" or heroic role-play. Grim, sure, but it's a view from a high place.
Yes, perhaps I was a little too conservative there :) .
The living do keep score, however. Death is no balm for the suffering of the living, only way to prevent new instances of suffering. Suffering is not absolved in death, only prevented from occurring again. Our end does not provide a transcendent victory over suffering. Those who lived still had horrible lives.
To be distracted by a future absence of suffering is only to disrespect and insult the suffering of the living. Suggesting the problem is resolved by an absence of future suffering is to fail to understand what suffering entails. The latest in a long line of fictions obscuring the horrors of suffering.
I think the idea of "absolute meaning" is a category error. The meaning of anything is always in relation to something else and never absolute. The very idea is incoherent, as far as I can see.
I also find the way you paint it as an 'either this or that worldview' scenario to be somewhat facile. Your crude caricature of Dostoevsky's work lacks nuance. Dostoevsky was a devout Christian. He wrote:
"If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth."
This same reasoning could be applied to birth - suffering is not absolved by abstaining from procreation, only prevented from inflicting it's harm. Part of pessimism like you said is that there is no transcendent, victorious solution to the problem. Only more preferable/rational options that minimize the problem. We can minimize the problem so that it no longer is problematic to anyone and is only a problem in a counterfactual, aesthetic view.
That's the transcendent fiction talking. In this understanding, you are ignoring the suffering of the living and treating like the absence of future suffering solves the problem.
What of the people desperate to have children? An anti-natalist policy only makes them suffer. Even as a personal responsibility, for it would be akin to someone denying an integral part of their identity-- how would you feel if you felt an obligation not to be a philosophical pessimist, yet still had the same feelings about suffering?
The end of life being a preferable/rational option doesn't help their suffering, no matter how ethical it might be.
Suffering cannot be minimised. Any instance of suffering is too great. Not even the absence of any future suffering can help. If we are to prevent suffering, it's not as an absolution or minimising of suffering which is occur. Rather, it is about preventing the instances of suffering themselves.
The anti-natalist does not call for an absence life to end the suffering of a childless family. They do it to prevent suffering for those who would otherwise lives. Anyone who thinks suffering is minimised is hiding from just how terrible suffering is. For them anti-natalism is about pretending the problem of suffering has been removed or mitigated, rather than just about preventing the suffering of future life.
I don't see how I am. People are suffering, and they will continue to do so while they are alive. It's akin to taking an aspirin for a headache. You remove the source of suffering.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
The suffering they experience from not having children does not, necessarily, make up for them having children. Furthermore they wouldn't suffer themselves if they hadn't been born, or had they died earlier. And if death or non-birth is too extreme for this situation, then not having children must not be that big of a deal.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
It doesn't help their suffering, but it certainly would help them.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
While I basically agree, I'm also a consequentialist. Suffering can indeed be minimized. The instance of one person suffering is better than the instance of two people suffering. It would be wrong to pick the latter option if you had the choice. So we can indeed, and should, minimize suffering, because suffering is bad. Elimination is also a form of minimization.
I don't see why we need to make a distinction between prevention and minimization. They're two sides of the same coin.
You do it in the next paragraph:
All these are dismissals of their suffering. At every turn you say their suffering doesn't matter, that it's not really that bad. You treat their suffering as if it is payment for absence of suffering, so it somehow not that bad. You insult them with the counterfactual that if they were suffering, then they wouldn't be suffering. Finally, you come right out and say it: there suffering is, in your words, " must not be that big of a deal."
How is that the statement of a philosophical pessimist who fully appreciates the nature of suffering? You've just given every "Suck it up. It's not so bad." excuse philosophical pessimism is trying to expose.
How exactly is a course of action which is suffering for someone helping them?
Minimisation is a lie. It foolishly generalises suffering. Supposedly, there is a certain level of suffering which is acceptable. If only we would "minimise" suffering to a certain level, then it would be all okay-- a suffering-based Utilitarianism if you will. But it's not okay. All instances of suffering are unacceptable. We cannot generalise them into some rule which absolves the problem. Every single instance of suffering hurts too much. We cannot "minimise"-- prevent to get suffering down to an acceptable standard-- only "prevent," avoid individual instances of suffering.
Ideally, we would prevent as many individual instance of suffering as we can, but this doesn't make everything acceptable. All the instances of suffering we haven't prevented as still infinitely terrible. The problem of suffering hasn't been resolved. We've just acted such that less instances of suffering have occurred.
Because I'm also a consequentialist, and I think some actions are worse than others depending on what their consequences are. So I'm not dismissing the suffering of the potential parents, I just don't think it's as important as stopping the creation of future sufferers.
I would be willing to argue that it is indeed a byproduct of pessimism that we have to sacrifice things even though they make us suffer. Suffering is inescapable.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Would it remove a worse suffering? Like I said, suffering is inescapable. No matter what you do, someone, perhaps yourself, is going to suffer. We have to pick the course of action that minimizes the suffering that results, not because suffering is some impersonal and vague bad but because we inherently understand what suffering is like and wish it to not be spread.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
But now you're putting words in my mouth. I never said that suffering itself was acceptable, only that the action that minimizes suffering is acceptable (and rational).
Minimization need not necessitate acceptable conditions. Only required moral actions.
You tend to agree with me as if you were disagreeing. I suspect all thinking is relatively facile. We zoom out as much as we need to. Philosophy generally seems especially general/facile, and this might be its primary charm. We zoom out, sacrifice detail/complexity for the grand structure. I expect the complexities of an issue to be addressed largely in practice, but then I don't think I'm participating in science so much as conversation here. We won't convert one another. We might trade a maxim or a metaphor symbiotically.
I've read that D was a believer,too, but was Stavrogin or Kirillov? The Possessed is a favorite of mine. You see a variety of "concept religions" in that book.
The kind of grin I'm talking about is the one you find on a man when he hears the "laughter of the gods." " Nothing is funnier than unhappiness." Beckett knew what was up. Thrown into this indignity of being a fragile ape, we do our best to sculpt a spirit like a statue in iron.
Your didn't talk about any of that. The comments were directed at how the suffering of the childless family wasn't as bad as they felt it was. In that you aren't making an argument that doing something else is more important. All you were doing is trying to placate them, to say they don't really suffer as they feel.
You weren't stepping forward and saying with honesty: "You ought not have children. The ethical course of action is the agent of your suffering and it ought to be (and so your terrible suffering) to save future life from suffering." Everything went into belittling their suffering rather than recognising it.
But does not the required moral action qualify as an acceptable condition? At least in the way you describe it. The way you speak treats "minimisation" is as if it's a victory over suffering. In the way you describe suffering, you fear it above all else-- if only life would be put to end, then we could finally say the world was at its best.
A sort of deep necessity for a world without suffering, to a point where one might say: "With the presence of suffering, life is meaningless." The same one which drives all those philosophies which assert suffering can be solved.
I think this is failed pessimism because it causes a turn away from suffering. Since any suffering person is viewed as meaningless wretch for living in suffering, it's more interested in looking to a final "minimising" than it is in instances of suffering themselves.
Everything went into "belittling" their suffering in order to recognize the existence of a much worse suffering.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Well I wouldn't call it a victory - I mean extinction doesn't really sound very victorious to me. But rather it's just the most rational action after coming to terms with our raw deal.
Think of how Nietzsche saw the under-man sneak his morality into the social sphere and thus "winning" over the ubermensch. It's a fake-victory. Similarly, ceasing procreation and going into extinction is not really victory, it's just deciding not to play the game.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Life is meaningless with or without suffering, suffering just brings this fact out.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Acknowledging the existence of suffering does not help anyone. If you had aspirin and I had a headache, and you refused to give me aspirin, I'd be pissed.
So on the contrary, I'm very much pessimistic because I believe our dreams will never be fulfilled, that happiness is an illusion, and that our best-course of action is extinction, something that is not very inspiring and yet the most reasonable reaction to our predicament. A fizzle-out philosophy.
So I can say that the suffering if the poor and ostracised individual "isn't that bad" because someone else is being tortured on the otherwise of the world? That's just dishonesty.
Suffering isn't defined on some level of scale acceptability. "Worse" or "less" suffering do not define each other. A person who hurts defines the instance of either.
This is exactly error I was talking about in my last post. The world is meaningless because we can't escape to a perfect world. Our necessary suffering is seen as the definition of life which doesn't matter. We are supposedly all "fake."
But that's not true. Going extinct isn't a fake victory over future suffering. It's actual. In such a world, there is no longer anyone who suffers. In acting to go extinct, we have achieved this world. We've played the game and, in terms of the world after we are dead, won a victory.
Those who think this is "fake" are only coveting a world where we live and do not suffer. For them the world can only fail because there's no way to have life without suffering.
But suffering is unavoidable. There's no aspirin to give. The very idea of such a drug is incoherent-- we don't have aspirin. We are just pointing out we have a headache.
I'd also be more pissed if I had a headache and someone insisted I wasn't in pain at all.
And if what you say here were true, what would be the point of philosophical pessimism? If recognising the existence suffering is of no use, then it has no ethical relevance. We might as well be telling the lie that suffering can be absolved. If acknowledging suffering is not helpful, why do we insist doing so is ethically important?
I'd say that lots of us (shrewdly) compare the amount of pain in a life to the amount of pleasure in a life. Suffering is a toll we pay on the way to pleasure, including higher or more abstract pleasures such pride in one's achievements. From this point of view, ceasing to exist is sometimes the only feasible victory. A man might realize he's losing his personality to brain disease and opt out before he becomes something he is ashamed to be. Or a paralyzed person may not adjust or want o adjust to being so dependent on others. But this same man in healthy days might weigh the chances of potential children and decide for them to throw them into this world, hoping they find the toll of suffering worth paying and are grateful (more often than not) that their father and mother assented to their tour or bought them a ticket for the roller coaster.
I can't agree that happiness is an illusion. Happiness comes and goes, just like suffering. I've known moments where I understood all the "praise God" stuff in the Bible, and I don't believe in a god other than reality as a whole. Moments come along and one is a king with the non-conceptual "secret." I think painters and musicians sometimes aim at these high states. I suppose you can call them illusions because they pass, but then everything is an illusion and the contrast is lost. Why should suffering not be called an illusion in the same way for the same reason? For me, life is an alternation between high and low states, and wisdom is learning to attain the high and avoid the low states.
I have a feeling that Willow is saying that 'non-procreation' is not an answer to existing suffering. I feel that this may be the source of disagreement.
Preventing future suffering is one thing and dealing with existing suffering is another. I think there is some discussion about the latter in the earlier parts of the thread.
The immediate discussions only refer to preventing future suffering; it's not as if existing suffering is simply thrown out of the box.
@darthbarracuda
Well, no. But when we have to make a decision, someone's suffering being worse than another person's makes them of moral priority. My disappointed wish to own a new car does not compare to the starving African child. In these cases, there's a trade-off - a lesser evil, if you may.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
We did not win, because we do not exist anymore. The universe forced our hand.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Would you be pissed if someone passed up the opportunity to help you in order to help someone who had broken their leg? That's what I'm referring to here. Sacrifices. The fact that we have to make sacrifices is an element of pessimism.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Recognizing the existence of suffering and coming to terms with it is the first step to doing something about it. If you care about suffering, you'll do something about it.
I think mostly because suffering illuminates our existential condition while happiness clouds our knowledge of it. We cannot be happy while actually confronting the void.
In the sense that we will endure suffering to get something we enjoy or want, yes-- a needle beats a continuing illness any day.
Pessimism doesn't deny this. All it says is that such a comparison doesn't involve the absence of suffering. A needle might be worth it, but it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Paying a toll is only done because we want something, not because it's not painful or it something we want.
The (best) anti-natalist argument is given on these grounds. The toll of suffering needed to have life is unacceptable. To force it upon new life is heinous. It will simply hurt new life too much (regardless of how they might think otherwise).
I do think a number anti-natalists argue more on the basis of life being meaningless though. It's easy to call for extinction, if you don't think any life has worth. Some of them are more interested in ending the wretches of life than they are in preventing suffering.
Striving-for-nothing is a great description of life. It's also not suffering. This is the grave mistake some within pessimism make. When I go to cricket training, it does not hurt as suffering (at least not usually-- e.g. injury, failure to meet some long term, time dependent training goal, etc.,etc.). I like doing it. I'm maintaining to maintain-- and that is great. I don't need anything but striving for nothing in that moment.
The "myth" is not that it's all pointless, that nothing is worthwhile, but the idea we were ever aiming for anything except our own existence-- up-to and including our own death.
No, I am not saying we were aiming at anything except our own existence. Who said that? We are always just maintaining to maintain. Some people get the endorphins high but never the existential clarity of instrumentality.
I don't know: I don't agree thinking as such is facile. There is facile thinking and thinking with nuance. I'd say the same about philosophy.
I agree.
This aspirin analogy is hilariously inappropriate.
Aspirin is used to treat headaches. We'll still be alive afterwards and we'll still get headaches, and we can and do still live worthwhile lives.
It's more akin to the successful eradication of smallpox, but still inappropriate, given that we lived through that and many of us went on to live worthwhile lives, and many of us continue to do so.
Just call it what it is: premature extinction. If you are an anti-natalist, you're an advocate of premature extinction. You're also against the potential of subsequent generations living worthwhile lives, although you might convince yourself that this is an impossibility.
I think you misunderstood what I'm trying to show in my response. For me, suffering a headache is good, because I was trying to demonstrate that any form of suffering hurts.
We cannot, as darth was doing, suggest that some forms of suffering do not hurt because they have a different pain or cause less damage to the body or mind - at least if we are being honest. My point was that darth was trying to bury the suffering of the childless couple to maintain a fiction of a worthless life and victory over suffering.
So, what you are suggesting of anti-natalism is true. They advocate our extinction, no matter how worthwhile lives might be. Though, I don't think you quite grasp what the anti-natalist is about. For them, the issue is not that life is worthless, it is that suffering is too great to make it ethical. The call for extinction is ground in the presence of suffering, not in life being worthless.
No, I barely read your response. I only glanced over the discussion between you two. I only copied you into my reply because I thought you might find what I had to say about darth's aspirin analogy to be of interest.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
That makes no sense on the face of it.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Of course.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Well, maybe he was, but like I say, I haven't read the full discussion, so I won't comment on that at the present time.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Yep.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
What part of any of my posts are you getting that from? It'd be better if you quoted me.
There have been claims in this discussion along the lines that life has no worth or that it cannot be comprehended, so that is what I have argued against at times. But yes, I'm well aware that anti-natalists claim that the suffering that one would experience would be too great to make procreation ethical. You don't need to patronise me. Ultimately, however, this does entail, as I said, at least for those who would rather have us go extinct, that they're against the potential of subsequent generations living worthwhile lives.
And even if you somehow managed to stop all life on earth, surely there must be life on other planets? We don't have evidence for it, but it seems to me a very plausible inference. But even if there was no life in other planets, the bacteria left over on earth would probably evolve into more and more complex organisms over time again.
Anti-natalist speak of some "solution" to suffering, as if they stand somehow outside of nature, judging it and coming up with ways to manipulate it. But the nature that permeates all is in them as well.
Anyways, just some views on it.
Then they may evolve self-awareness and come to the same conclusion.
Quoting Zosito
Same response.
Quoting Zosito
It is not a solution to suffering wholesale. It is simply an elegant solution to prevent future suffering for at least one's own possible offspring. That is X number of possible offspring (based on cultural/biological likelihood that this could be the case) who will not suffer.
Certainly, there are two main ideas of suffering. One I call the "Western" notion- this is utilitarian notions of negative experiences. There is also what I call the "Eastern" notion of suffering- this is a much more subtle understanding but the insight of Buddhism, Ancient Greco-Roman philosophies and the like picked up on- this is the idea that "we are a constant becoming but never being". There is a dissatisfaction at the root of motives, and this can be distilled a constant need for turning basic survival needs and angst into pleasure and entertainment goals that are never satisfied. There is an existential imperative to do to do to do. Anyways, I know your inquiry was strictly on antinatalism, not necessarily the philosophy surrounding the particular stance.
If by "void" you mean our impending utter annihilation, then I think we can indeed reason much of the sting out of death, but only at the cost of modifying our image of what is worthwhile in ourselves. There's a "cheap" romanticism of the snowflake/fingerprint personality that shudders at this existential threat. The necessary adjustment is to shift one's weight to the other foot. That which dies is not that which is most important. Other humans carry on the same virtues, with slightly different faces, voices, etc. Of course the species itself will be extinguished, but this doesn't bother me as long as it's a distant event. This surely applies to personal death, too. It would be hard to be happy if I knew I were to die in 10 minutes. But dying in 20 years might even be good. The body suffers more and the mind is "bored" enough in a peculiar sense to welcome the adventure. I expect nothing from death, but I expect the preparation for death to be the adventure (knowing that it's Coming Soon). Ginsberg was exhilarated. I can already sort of imagine that at 40.